


Dirt in the Sky

by winglessdrake



Series: Land of the Meek [1]
Category: Homestuck
Genre: Alternate Universe - Slavery, Alternia-Focused, F/F, F/M, M/M, Multi, dubcon
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2011-05-20
Updated: 2012-04-07
Packaged: 2017-10-19 15:02:26
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 8
Words: 29,936
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/202138
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/winglessdrake/pseuds/winglessdrake
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In a world ruled by psionics, what will become of those whose ancestors once ruled all? Will they accept their fate, or rise against it?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. A Voided Inheritance

**Author's Note:**

> I've made an ask and update blog for this setting, that can be found on tumblr at http://askthemeek.tumblr.com/. Both in-character questions and requests for more information about the setting are welcome, though I reserve the right to be as mysterious as possible when answering questions that involve spoilers. I will also be posting status updates about forthcoming chapters and side stories, which might come in handy. Thank you for reading!

He would forget his own hatching, in the sweeps to come. The struggle and pain, the _crack_ resounding through his head as he finally broke through the hardened shell of his cocoon, the empty air of the cave seemingly bitter cold on his virgin skin, all these impressions would fade in time. Likewise the trials, except for a vague impression of struggle and fear; these things were not meant to be remembered. He would remember the feeling of safety, when at least he reached the waiting arms of his lusus; that memory, at least, would be reinforced ten thousands time over as he matured, though he would forget the gentleness of the beast's touch as it wiped away his blood and the cocoon-slime that still clung to his skin, and the roughness of the drone-spun shirt he was given, his sign boldly emblazoned on it in the color of his blood.

He would forget meeting the others of his caste in a large cavern, the light of the pink and green moons just barely visible at the end of a long tunnel to the outside. The indigo, already taller than he and clutching a struggling fish-tailed goat to his chest; the teal, alone and trembling, meeting the eyes of no one; the cerulean, bold and unafraid of the white spider that perched on her back; he would forget them all, face and name and sign. He would forget the long walk to the tunnel mouth, holding his lusus's hand and trying to ignore the bickering of those that walked with him. He was only just hatched, but he had drunk deeply at the schoolcasks of history and propriety, and already felt that occasions as momentous as this called for more decorum than his fellows were showing. He would even forget the way the indigo paused at the mouth of the cave, asking in a loud, crude voice where the carpenter drones were – but the rest, ah. The rest he would always remember.

He would remember a lone girl, her horns forming sharp points, silhouetted against the light of the moons as she defiantly dashed outside, ahead of all the rest – and he would remember the sharp, frightened cry that followed after. He would remember piling outside with the other children, too young and curious to heed a warning when they heard it, and the shock and fear that came over him when he saw the adults. They weren't supposed to be here; he was only just hatched, but on that point he was certain. Adults were dangerous, and to be avoided until he was strong enough to protect himself. The carpenter drones should have fought off any that tried to approach the brooding caverns; that was what they were _there_ for, on top of and in addition to their stated purpose of building.

He would remember spotting the crumpled body of a drone lying nearby; it was plain that they had failed in their purpose.

One of the adults approached, her sign a dark yellow, just a few shades shy of brown. He would forget the specifics of everything she said to them all, but the gist remained clear: they would not be allowed to journey into the wilderness, as was their birthright, and establish their own hives and communities where they could mature in peace. They would come with her, for their own good, and so long as they remained calm no harm would come to them. He saw the longsword at her hip, and the bows held in hands of her companions, all of them shades of yellow and green, and knew it was no empty threat.

But his companions were not so wise; the girl with the spider protested, demanding an explanation. One of the adults tried to grab her shoulder, and her lusus suddenly darted at him, leaping over it's charge's head and burying its fangs in his arm. He yelled and flailed backwards, already turning white as the spider's venom took its toll; one of his fellows ran it through with an arrow. The girl shrieked, her voice high and enraged, and threw herself at the archer, less than half his size but twice as fierce.

Affected by her anger and their own fear, the other children followed suit, attacking whichever adult was closest in a blind frenzy. But it was helpless from the start; these were fully-grown trolls, warriors all, and the children didn't stand a chance. Some were shot, discovering to their horror that the arrows were coated with a paralytic that left them twitching helplessly on the ground; others were knocked off their feet and pinned, finding their teeth and fists useless against the adults' boiled leather armor.

There was no doubt that he would have found himself a member of one or the other group, were it not for his lusus. Though it was still young, it was already quite strong and swift; strong enough to pick Equius up and throw him over its back, and swift enough to dodge the adults who tried to grab him and carry him away. Shouts followed them, and worse: the image of an arrow, swiftly flying past his face, close enough that he could _see_ the paralytic glistening on the tip and count the individual filaments of each feather, would be forever burned into his memory. But his lusus outran both shouts and arrows, and carried him deep into the wilderness.

At the time, he assumed his lusus was simply that swift; it would be sweeps and sweeps before he realized that the adults had not really tried that hard to catch him after all. With no carpenter drone to help him, they assumed he would die of starvation or exposure within a perigee – and perhaps they might have been proven right, if fate hadn't intervened.

 Four nights and five days passed before he met his salvation; five days of trembling fear, of hiding from the sun in the lee of boulders and under trees, of clinging to his lusus and knowing it would not be strong enough to protect him, should they be discovered; and four days of scrounging for whatever food they could find in the fallow soil, of gnawing hunger and foul tastes, and constant, relentless travel, for Equius still feared pursuit, and insistently drove both himself and his lusus ever onward into the wilderness. Young trolls weren't meant to travel like this; his hive should have been close to completion by now, and he should have been growing strong on the plentiful food the drones provided. He could feel himself growing weaker with every passing night, and while the milk his lusus began to provide on the third day helped stave off starvation, he knew even as he drank deeply that it was only staving off the inevitable.

But then he met her.

It was on the fifth night. Exhaustion had clouded all his senses, forcing him to lean on his lusuoos as they walked together, lest he lose his balance and stumble in a cloud of tired confusion. He was so weary that he didn't even notice anything had changed about their surroundings until his lusus suddenly stopped, looking around with a sharp glare. Then he finally heard it: singing, coming from somewhere downhill from where he and his lusus stood. Caution warred with his hunger; he was still deathly afraid of the adults, but this sounded nothing like them; the voice was too high and unsteady, and it stumbled over the words to the song as if it had only just learned them, or perhaps was making them up on the spot.

If the singer was still young, they might be willing to help him. He had nothing worth trading, but his strength and that of his lusus had not yet left either of them entirely; surely he could perform some service in exchange for shelter and food.

He stumbled down the slope, his lusus in tow, and out into a clearing, just in time to meet the singer and her retinue as they came from the opposite direction. The singer herself sat on the shoulder of a large carpenter drone, her mouth hanging open as she stopped mid-verse to gape at him, and by the drone's feet padded a large white cat, both its mouths curling in a growl of warning. He'd been prepared to beg for mercy, for sympathy, but once he actually saw her he found himself at a loss for words. Though the schoolcasks had failed to prepare him for what had happened outside the cave, he still knew a little of the ways of the world, and knew that while a green was slightly more likely to be merciful than a psionic might have been, she still had no real reason to take pity on him.

But it turned out that he had sorely underestimated this girl's capacity for kindness; she smiled at him, a wide, happy grin that could not possibly be mistaken as anything other than friendly, and jumped down from the drone's shoulder, her arms open and mouth overflowing with happy chatter.

"Hi! Did we scare you? I'm sorry, we were just passing through! Do you live around here? We should be neighbors! Nobody else wanted to come exploring with me, but it's so pretty up here, don't you think?" Then, while Equius was still reeling from this sudden stream of information, she turned back to the cat lusus, which was still growling and eying his own guardian suspiciously, and snapped, "Pounce! Calm down! Sheesh!" and then turned back to him with a roll of her eyes. "That's my lusus, Pounce de Leon! And I'm Nepeta Leijon!" She pronounced her name proudly, chest puffing out. "Who are you?" And at last she paused, looking at him expectantly.

It took him a moment to find his voice, but at last he said shyly, "Equius Zahhak. And this is Aurthour."


	2. Rogue Awakening

He had sorely underestimated her indeed. Her assumption was turned prediction: they did become neighbors, in a sense even greater than those of the mostly tightly-knit lawnring. Once he, faltering and shy, had explained his situation to her, she nearly fell over herself with eagerness to share with him all she had. It was his first taste of kindness; he dutifully repaid it with his knowledge and strength. Where she might have been content with a simple hole hewed into the mountainside, he insisted the drone dig deeper, until it had dug a proper hive for them both, with plenty of space to grow into. Where she, out of boredom and disinterest, might have ignored the antenna and receiver included in her starter kit in favor of hunting and exploring the wilds, he set up both, and shared with her the things he had learned while he carried her kills back to their hive. They fit so seamlessly into each other's lives that it could only have been fate that brought them together, and the idea that they were fated for each other seemed so natural that sweeps and sweeps would pass before the word "moirallegiance" would even cross either of their minds.

But that was for the future. They spent their first sweep together concerned with little more than survival, and beginning the long, arduous path of self-directed training that would impart the lion's share of the skills they would need for their adult lives. Equius thought they would be working at a severe disadvantage, out in the wilderness by themselves, but Nepeta proved to have been hatched with an innate sense of direction which allowed her to re-establish contact with her hatching mates and the lawnring they had formed. Equius had been reluctant to accompany her, but even more reluctant to let her make the journey alone. Fortunately it seemed the greens had received no more or less cultural indoctrination than his own caste had; they were weary of him for his height, already a head over theirs though less than a sweep had passed since his hatching, and for his lusus, far stronger than any two or three of theirs put together, but refrained from outward objection once Nepeta stridently declared him to be "with her." Working as a group for their own safety, the greens had already begun to trade with the nearest adult settlement, and through them Equius and Nepeta were able to obtain the supplies they needed.

The first sign of trouble didn't come until they were older, sweeps older. Nepeta had grown into a fine hunter and tracker, with skills far surpassing anyone in her brooding group or the nearby town. Indeed, Equius sometimes wondered if there was anyone in the entire world to match her abilities. He, meanwhile, had cultivated an interest in mechanical devices of all sorts, developing what Nepeta insisted was quite an extraordinary ability for repairing broken machines, though of course she didn't couch it in precisely those terms. He designed his own devices, as well; his portion of their hive was filled with haphazardly stacked blueprints. It was entirely likely that he could have made a decent living off his skills, without even bothering to travel past the nearest town – if he had dared go to town. He was haunted by the spectre of the adults who had stolen his hatching mates, and with good reason, for he had realized very early in his life what their true purpose had been. It was illegal for a blueblood to walk free – and what would he do, if he were discovered? What would become of him? He even began to accompany Nepeta on her trips to the greenblooded lawnring less and less often, even though those who lived there had long since come to regard him as some sort of extension of Nepeta's presence, like her lusus perhaps, or an extra limb. Nepeta missed his company, but didn't require it; she had long since grown capable of defending herself from nearly any threat, and outrunning what she could not fight.

 Still, he had not abandoned her to her own devices completely. One of the very first things he had built had been a set of handheld, two-way radios; Nepeta took to carrying one of the set with her whenever she left the hive, and Equius in turn had made sure his own half of the set was always in an easily-accessible place, no matter how cluttered his part of the hive grew. They'd seen occasional use before that night; sometimes Nepeta's hunts and trips into town would keep her away for days at a time, and she claimed to miss hearing Equius's voice. When the radio suddenly crackled into life and he heard her voice, Equius assumed she was radioing him for the same purpose as always; but it turned out he was quite mistaken.

"I have a job for you!" she said with her usual good cheer. "A good one! Can you meet me by that one ravine out on the plain where the rocks are that funny shade of red and Pounce once got all freaked out because she tried to take a nap on top of a burrowbeast village and they collapsed the roof of the main burrow right out from underneath her?" 

"I can be there in twenty minutes," he said immediately, and was surprised to hear voices other than hers muttering to each other on the other end of the line. "Is someone there with you?"

"Just some new friends! We've got a motorized four wheeled device with a busted engine out here that's kind of going _thunk_ thunk _kkk_ chow –"

"I'll be certain to bring my tools with me," he said dryly, amused as always by her attempts to help him diagnose mechanical problems.

"Okay!" she said happily – but then there was a pause, and when she spoke again it was with a lowered, nearly inaudible voice, "Just make sure not to wear anything that has your sign on it, okay?"

"…All right," he said, and ended the call. It was the middle of the cold, dark season; he found himself thankful for the foresight that had led him to leaving the outside of his warmest jacket blank, though for safety's sake he also changed into a blank shirt before calling Aurthour and throwing the already-packed haversack the lusus offered him over his shoulder.

He reached the ravine in a little over ten minutes; he'd always been taller and stronger than Nepeta or anyone else in her hatching group, but over the past sweep or so the difference had become even more dramatic. He'd forced to take special care when handling anything delicate – and as time went on, 'anything delicate' came to apply to more and more objects, Nepeta among them. She insisted the change was only temporary, and that he would eventually grow used to his strength, but Equius wasn't so sure. But in the meantime, even he had to admit it had its uses, and traveling any significant distance was one of them -- even if he did have to deliberately slow himself down a little so Aurthour could keep up. There'd been no question of not bringing his lusus along; he trusted the security measures he'd installed around the hive to keep his and Nepeta's belongings safe, while these strangers she'd met were completely unknown.

As he'd been led to expect, there was a motorized four wheeled device parked by the ravine, and Equius slowed to a brisk walk as it came into view, his lusus falling into step just behind him. It was a large device, rather like a small mobile hive in structure, and with a trailer hitched to the back. As he drew closer he could make out the shapes of three lusii and trolls sitting in a group by the side of the device – and then one of the trolls was pushing herself to her feet and bounding up to him, and it was Nepeta, throwing her arms around his neck in one of the ferocious hugs he quietly treasured.

"You made it!" she said with a grin, grabbing him by the arm and tugging him over to where the other two trolls and their lusii waited. "This is my meowrail, Equius!" she called out to them. "He knows pretty much everything about machines!" One of the strangers laughed, but it wasn't an overtly cruel sound; Equius found himself smiling shyly at them as he and Nepeta got close, even though they were both at least a head taller than him, and greenbloods by the color of their signs.

"I'm glad to hear it," said one of them, a woman, who had been sitting on the ground with her back against a massive six-legged bear lusus, but who was now standing and brushing herself off. "I thought we'd fallen into some seriously deep shit when the old heap quit on us." Her companion, a male, laughed derisively; he was also pushing himself to his feet, but it was the woman who came forward to greet them, politely holding both her hands before her so Equius and Nepeta could see they were empty. "I'm Kaylen Portel, and this is _my_ moirail, Cidres Tephen." The male waved, grinning; of the two lusii neither of them said anything. Equius supposed it was due to their greater degree of maturity, and so refrained from introducing Aurthour – though he could not help but mark the two creatures regardless. The six-legged bear was nearly as large as the four-wheeled device, and next to it rested a low-bellied scorpion, its two tails curled over its back in a position that seemed to belie the casual friendliness of the trolls it traveled with.

"They're traders," Nepeta said excitedly in his ear. "They're willing to give us some of their stuff if you can fix their device!"

Kaylen laughed, throwing up her hands. " _Only_ if you can fix it," she said firmly, her eyes glowing with amusement. "If I start giving stuff away for free, I'll drive myself out of business."

"I'm sure it's nothing I can't handle," Equius said quietly, but with certainty. How bad could the problem possibly be?

****

Very bad, as it turned out.

"I'm going to fucking kill that piece of shit who calls himself a mechanic," Kaylen had said fervently, once Equius had explained the problem to her. The motorized four wheeled device represented her livelihood, perhaps even more so than the trade goods it carried; and like any responsible trader she'd taken it in for a tune-up before attempting to cross the wasteland between cities. But it seemed the mechanic she'd taken it to was the sort of troll who preferred to skate by on as little effort as possible; while he'd done everything she'd asked him to, he'd gone about it in such a careless manner that several the organic connections transferring electricity from one part of the engine to another had been shaken loose. Dysfunction had been inevitable; in a sense she and Cidres had been lucky that the engine had "only" stopped working. 

Cidres had taken the news in stride, but Kaylen had appeared ready to start spitting nails by the time he'd made the entirety of the situation plain. Yet she hadn't tried to take it out on Nepeta or him, as the bearers of bad news; she'd threatened the absent mechanic extensively, and walked away for a few minutes to kick some rocks, but by the time she came back all she had to say was a question – how long would it take to fix the damage? – and an invitation – would Nepeta like to come look at their stock and see if there was anything she liked? Nepeta had jumped on the invitation with almost unseemly glee; she loved shopping, and while their lifestyle allowed them to afford the necessities and the basic tools of their respective trades, they rarely had enough credit left over just to buy things for the sake of having them. Cidres led her around to the trailer at the rear of the four wheeled device, while Aurthour and Pounce rested by the side of the truck with the two trader lusii, leaving him alone with the engine block and Kaylen.

He suspected that the real reason she stayed close to watch him work was out of a suspicious desire to make sure he was actually working, and not trying to cheat her like the other troll had; but while he was still slightly suspicious of her just on basic principle, it was hard to remember why as time went on. She made the time pass more quickly by telling him about herself and her moirail, and the business they were trying to run, and while she had a somewhat crude demeanor it would be a lie to say he found her an entirely unpleasant conversationalist. He actually found her stories rather fascinating; it was like a glimpse into another world, much larger than the one he'd known, and he couldn't help but be a little envious of this greenblood who was less than three sweeps older than him, who had one day decided to sell nearly everything she and her moirail owned and set themselves up as itinerant traders.

They were trying to gather capital, it turned out, for a shop in Y Cythreuliaid, one of the major southern cities. This was entirely normal; anyone could build a hive anywhere in the wasteland that they wanted to, but land in the cities was closely regulated. They were making a circuit of the small towns and lawnrings in the region, trading with anyone who would let them close enough. “But isn’t it dangerous,” he’d asked her eventually, “with just the four of you?”

She’d snorted with laughter. “Not nearly as much as you think.” He ducked his head slightly, hiding his face behind his hair lest he blush with embarrassment. But Kaylen wasn’t even looking at him; she was staring off into the distance, her head cocked slightly in the direction of the trailer, perhaps to better hear the drifting sounds of Cidres and Nepeta’s conversation. The two seemed to be getting along well, if the often-repeated sounds of laughter were any indication. “Cidres is the best shot this side of the Caregogs –“ she said proudly, naming a large mountain range to the west that divided the interior of the continent from the coast; what she was really saying was that only among the Cavalreapers would you find a better marksman – “and I’ve yet to meet the troll or beast that can take on Bruina and Petet when they’re working together.” She glanced back at him suddenly, a secretive smile creasing her lips. “And I’ve got a few tricks of my own up my sleeve.”

“Of course,” he said, stammering slightly. “I never meant to suggest you couldn’t handle yourselves, I mean –“

She laughed again and clapped his back. “Relax kid,” she said firmly. “I ain’t gonna bite you now that we’re getting to know each other.” Meaning she might have been bitten him earlier, he wondered dazedly. It was the first time anyone other than Nepeta or Aurthour had touched him in sweeps. And then, when his guard was down, came the question he’d been dreading.

“So what about you and Nepeta?” she asked, resting her elbows on the rim of the engine block and her chin on her hands. “They don’t put lawnrings on the fucking maps, but I have it from a very reliable source that the nearest one ain’t closer than a good three or four days on foot. You kids have a couple of motorized devices hiding somewhere out there in the bush or something?”

“Of course not,” he said immediately – the idea of a pair of trolls their age being able to afford even one motorized device, even a small one, was completely preposterous – but he silently cursed himself as soon as the words passed his lips. Would it have been better to let her think he and Nepeta were richer than average, rather than trying to come up with some other explanation for their presence? Or would that have just exposed a new layer of trouble. “I…know the lawnring you’re talking about,” he said slowly, deciding on the fly that giving part of the truth would probably be better than fabricating a complete lie. “But we don’t actually live there. Nepeta prefers the wilderness.”

She was giving him a skeptical look. “So what, you kids live all the way out here just for the fucking hell of it?”

“…More or less?” Equius suddenly realized that he was giving her a blatantly pleading look, as immediately schooled his expression into a calmer, more professional demeanor. Making himself look pitiful wouldn’t make her accept the gaping holes in his story.

But, it seemed, it might make her willing to overlook them. “Whatever,” she said, her grin returning as though it had never left. “Like I give a shit about what a bunch of fucking wigglers think anyway; if the Legislacerators don’t give a damn why should I?”

She’d apparently decided either he or Nepeta had committed some crime bad enough to get the two of them exiled from the lawnring; Equius cringed, but didn’t bother to correct her. He was almost finished with the engine block anyway, and said as much. The last few connections were deep inside the block, almost out of his reach completely; he made a mental note to check those connections first, the next time he took a job like this.

He would also make sure to wear gloves, he thought inanely, as he stared at his own hand in shock. In his relief over finishing the job and escaping the awkward turn the conversation had taken, he’d grown careless and caught his hand on one of the many sharp edges that filled the engine block, tearing off a small patch of skin. It was a minor injury, scarcely worth worrying about – or it would have been, if he were anything other than a blueblood.

That split-second’s hesitation was his undoing; his first instinct, once his mind began to work again, was to conceal the injury, but it was too late. Kaylen had already seen it, and before he had time to move, it seemed almost before he had time to BLINK, a small knife had appeared in her hand, and he could feel the needle-sharp point press against his throat. So that was what she’d meant by keeping a few tricks up her sleeve.

“…I was wondering why you weren’t wearing a sign,” she said after a moment, staring at him wide-eyed. She seemed almost as shocked as him. The point of the blade moved slowly across his throat, pushing the collar of his jacket slightly to the side. “No collar either, huh…” she murmured, and then suddenly grinned, showing him all of her dagger-sharp teeth. It was if anything even more frightening than the knife at his throat. “Oh lucky day,” she sang quietly, and then suddenly raised her voice, calling out, “Cid! On guard!”

Nepeta cried out; a short, startled exclamation, and he heard Pounce answer with a warning growl. Every instinct Equius possessed screamed at him to go to her, but Kaylen pressed the knife against his throat, hard enough to draw a small drop of blood that trickled down over his skin. “Ah ah ah,” she chided him, still grinning hungrily. “You’re not going anywhere, blueblood.” Then Cidres appeared, his crossbow trained on a frightened and staring Nepeta, who was demanding to know what was going on, and the four lusii followed, the bear standing between Cidres and Pounce, and the scorpion threatening Aurthour with raised tails and clicking pincers.

“What the hell, Kayl?” Cidres called out; he at least seemed almost as shocked by Kaylen’s behavior as Nepeta was – but it hadn’t stopped him from following his moirail’s orders.

“Looks like I caught us a feral!” Kaylen sang out, her gaze and knife still locked on Equius; she seemed unwilling to take her eyes off him for a second. “You got any idea how much these things are worth?” Equius’s blood ran cold in his veins, even as Cidres put two and two together and let out an excited whoop.  Kaylen’s teeth might as well have been chips of ice, her smile was so cold. “You are going to make us very rich, blueblood,” she told him confidently.

“What are you talking about?” Nepeta snapped, staring wildly between Equius, the two traders, and the crossbow that was still trained on her chest. “Equius isn’t feral, he’s my moirail!”

“This coming from a half-grown, half-wild wiggler?” Cidres sneered, brandishing his crossbow. “Credit where credit’s due, it takes _talent_ to reach your age and still be that naïve.”

“Sad, but true,” Kaylen said, her voice heavy with a sickeningly condescending kindness. “I guess you didn’t realize that your so-called moirail is illegal contraband. You should be thanking us for taking him off your hands.”

Nepeta hissed furiously. “Screw that!” she said – she was so flushed with anger that only habit kept her from using harsher language. Pounce began to growl, quietly, every hair on the cat lusus’s back standing on end, and Kaylen’s bear lusus stood up on the hindmost pair of its six legs in warning. Nepeta ignored them both; to Equius’s horror he suddenly realized that she wasn’t even looking at Cidres, despite the obvious and immediate threat he represented; all her attention was on Kaylen. “I’m not letting you take him anywhere!” she declared stridently, the very picture of firm resolution.

There was a pregnant pause; Equius was suddenly aware of his own pulse, pounding fearfully in his ears. At last Kaylen shrugged. “Sorry to hear that,” she said, then nodded to Cidres. “Kill her.”


	3. Under Heat and Pressure

Equius’s pulse roared in his ears and a blue haze settled over his vision, blinding him for what later evidence suggested was less than a second -- but at the time it seemed like hours. He couldn’t think, he couldn’t breathe; Kaylen had ordered Nepeta’s death, and Equius’s mind was filled with one long, anguished howl at the thought of any harm coming to her because of him. He would have gladly given his life in exchange for hers; but then he blinked once, clearing his vision, and realized with sudden clarity that there was no need for either of them to die. He reached out and grabbed Kaylen’s arm, the one holding the sharp little knife to his throat, and snapped it like a brittle twig.

Kaylen shrieked and fell, clutching her shattered wrist; Equius had one brief glimpse of boney white poking through her sleeve, nearly obscured by a torrent of green. Then he was turning to face Cidres, whose finger had fallen from the trigger of his crossbow as Kaylen’s cry drew his attention – but Equius wasn’t needed there. Pounce had seized the moment and lived up to her name, forcing Cidres to his knees with her weight and momentum, and rending his throat with one mighty snap of her twin jaws. Nepeta had left her mother to it, turning to Aurthour’s aid – for, Equius saw to his horror, his lusus was in very dire straits indeed. The twin-tailed scorpion, Petet, had struck lightning-fast, and though Aurthour had crushed its head under his hooves a split-second later, and Nepeta had assured the kill with a stab of her barbed claws, Equius’s lusus had already fallen to his knees, a sickly blue flush discoloring the flesh of one foreleg. Worse yet, Kaylen’s bear lusus had taken the offensive, roaring with rage and planting all six feet on the ground in preparation for a ponderous charge that could only end in mass destruction. Nepeta and Aurthour lay directly in its path.

This time Equius truly acted without thinking. He rushed the bear, ducking beneath its snapping jaws and wrapping his arms around its throat, digging his heels into the sun-baked soil and twisting for all he was worth. All the world seemed to hold its breath; the bear roared, and he could feel its thick muscles shifting under his arms as it prepared to shake him off and make an end of him. But he persevered, Nepeta’s name on his lips as he dug in with his fingers, hard enough to puncture the bear’s thick hide, and _pulled_ \--  

The crack of bone came suddenly, and without warning. The struggling lusus went limp in Equius’s arms; he hastily released it and stepped back, watching it fall ponderously to the ground, dead. Then he turned back to Nepeta, who had remained by Aurthour’s side the entire time. It was immediately obvious that the ever-faithful lusus was in a bad way; he had never been one to be bothered by the cold, but he was shivering now, and his sides heaved as though he couldn’t quite get enough air. Equius fell to his knees by Aurthour’s side, and might have remained that way, frozen in place by the suffering HIS error had brought down on his beloved custodian, if Nepeta hadn’t spoken.

“What do we do?” she asked him, eyes wide and frightened, and it was that which got his brain working again. What _could_ they do? The scorpion lusus’s venom must have been potent indeed to already have such a dramatic effect, and the nearest town large enough to have a hospital was miles away. Their only hope was that Cidres had done the sensible thing, and carried antivenom for use on people his lusus had poisoned by accident; he himself would have of course been immune from long exposure to the venom. Equius conveyed this information to Nepeta in a single, stuttering rush; the full weight of everything that had just happened was falling on him like a heavy stone, staggering his mind. It would be several nights before he would feel as though he could think clearly about the situation – but sadly he didn’t have that long.

The two of them turned as one to Cidres’s body, which lay where it had fallen, Pounce still worrying at his throat with her teeth in a desultory way. A cry of alarm burst from two throats, but it was Nepeta who surged to her feet, lunging at their one remaining enemy. Kaylen had, it seemed, recovered partially from the shock of her injury and was trying to crawl into the cab of the motorized four wheeled device. Nepeta seized her by the coat and pulled her back with a shout; the two girls fell to the dusty ground, the receiver of the device’s radio clutched in Kaylen’s remaining hand. The wire stretched and broke; Kaylen shrieked with rage and tried to attack Nepeta, but with only one working hand she didn’t stand a chance. Nepeta pinned her to the ground, needle-sharp claws pressed against her throat; Kaylen snarled and spit in Nepeta’s face.

“You think you’ve won?” she snapped, face flushed viridian with rage as she continued her futile struggle against Nepeta’s grip. “My kismesis knows where I am, you little bitch! He’ll come looking for me, and when he does –“ But Nepeta wasn’t interested in hearing more from the woman who had tried to take her moirail away. She drove her claws straight into Kaylen’s eyes, silencing her threats forever. Then she turned and, with an unnatural calm that chilled Equius as much as it soothed his own nerves, shooed her own lusus away from Cidres’s body and began to search his clothing, quickly uncovering the antivenom Equius had hoped he carried.

Aurthour recovered quickly, a welcome relief to all concerned, for it allowed Equius and Nepeta to turn their minds to a far greater problem.  Try as they might, they couldn’t quite bring themselves to doubt Kaylen’s dying words. What were the odds that a troll of her age and intellect would remain unattached in all but the pale quadrant? Sooner or later someone would miss her, and come to investigate. Perhaps they might even get the Legislacerators involved; children might be left to themselves, but the murder of a nearly full-grown businesswoman was a far different matter. First the townspeople would be the questioned, then the inhabitants of the nearby lawnrings…And sooner or later, someone would mention the strange hermit who lived out in the wilderness, and her blueblooded companion.

Just the thought of facing a Legislacerator turned Equius’s blood to ice. He could not stay in this region, that much was certain – and of course Nepeta refused to let him leave alone. He put up a token protest, concerned for her safety, but secretly he was glad of her insistence. He wasn’t at all sure of his ability to live without her. But still another question remained: how to avoid another confrontation like the one they had but lately survived?

Thinking clearly was difficult, after everything that had just happened. He seemed to be moving in a daze, even as he and Nepeta made sure their tracks were as carefully covered as possible. A search of the motorized four wheeled device’s cab revealed insurance documentation; the vehicle was registered, meaning they didn’t dare keep it. They did, however, take all the cash from Kaylen’s strong box, some extra clothing, and a handful of high-quality tools that Equius had been missing from his collection. The rest was burned with the device and the dead bodies, after Equius had carefully rewired the engine just so and pushed it into the ravine. Both he and Nepeta regretted seeing such a treasure trove go, but taking it all with them would have been impossible. They’d have to leave behind most of the items that were properly theirs; it didn’t make any sense to weigh themselves down with stolen goods.

The subdued trip back to their shared hive was an ordeal; his thoughts seemed disconnected, disjointed, beginning with a review of what had just transpired and trailing off into nothing, only to begin again. He couldn’t let anything like that happen again, that much was obvious. It was too dangerous, both to himself and to Nepeta, who was of course his first concern. He knew she wouldn’t hesitate to fight for him, just as he would do the same for her – but the dangers she faced as a greenblood defending a blue seemed so much greater than his own fears. He had to protect her, but how?

It had to have been the shock that kept him from latching onto the obvious solution right away; as it was he suddenly stopped in the middle of packing up his things, feeling as though the bear lusus had struck him a blow between the eyes. It was such an elegant solution that he cursed himself for not thinking of it sweeps ago. There’d been no need to hide himself away in a cave after all, not when he could hide in plain sight.

Nepeta protested, of course, but they both knew there was no real choice to the matter. He couldn’t simply hide his sign; not when the smallest injury would expose his blood for all the world to see. He needed to change himself, make his presence permissible, blend in so well that nobody would even give him a second glance – and there was only one way to do that.

Explosions weren’t his specialty, but he knew enough about chemistry to manage the collapse of their hive. Even if anyone made it this far, they would most likely assume he and Nepeta had died in a cave-in…and it would take nights to prove otherwise. The two of them left hand in hand, without a backward glance, just as it should have been – and if Nepeta insisted on frowning and fretting over the green band he’d strapped around his neck, well. There was nothing to be done about that.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> FINALLY I can get to the real plot then XD  
> or at least introduce the rest of the cast  
> iridescentPotato: the real plot being Eridan being a pretty princess?  
> CinnabarDrake: /CRACKS UP  
> SURE WHY NOT
> 
> And now you all know what you have to look forward to! In six or seven chapters or so.


	4. The Maiden

Equius was ten sweeps old, and felt very cold and alone.

The former sensation, at least, was almost certainly an illusion, brought on by what he felt to be an uncomfortably conspicuous lack of a shirt and the appraising looks green-blooded, maroon-vested employees of the house were giving him as they moved to and fro across the wide room that lay just behind the stage. He had already been questioned, vetted, and thoroughly tested by both the house’s professional appraiser and two inspectors from rival houses, but he fancied he could still feel their eyes on him, mentally calculating their share of his worth. The other slaves and lusii that filled the room were little better; they sat or leaned against the walls in silent resignation, listening to the patter of the auctioneer with a thin veneer of affected inattention. Try as he might, Equius could not ignore it completely, knowing full well that soon he would be out there on that stage, and that all he could hope for was the chance that someone in the audience would be more interested in his actual skills than they were in exercising cruelty. He didn’t imagine the thoughts of his silent companions, who had been steadfast in refusing eye contact or conversation – for what was the point, when they were all about to be separated anyway? – were any different, though a selfish part of him rather thought it might be worse for him. Most of them were roughly his age, and so had presumably been raised for scenes such as this, but the only master he had ever known had been his moirail, Nepeta.

Nepeta…She’d wept when they were finally separated, protesting to the last – but quietly, too quietly for the Legislacerator to hear. “Let’s just go,” she’d whispered in his ear, as they embraced for the last time. “We could fight our way out, and run for it, they’d never expect that…” But he’d shaken his head, and with infinite care kissed her cheek. He couldn’t risk any harm coming to her, least of all because of him – so he’d released her and turned to the Legislacerator – who perhaps had heard Nepeta after all, for he offered Equius a small nod and immediately turned to go, gesturing for Equius to follow him. And then had come the long, lonely journey to the capital, allowing Equius plenty of time to contemplate his fate.

He’d been allowed to keep Aurthour, so he wasn’t truly alone. But in a way his lusus’s presence hurt as much as it comforted; Aurthour was just as helpless as he was, if not more so.

There was a stir at the far end of the room; Equius looked up in time to see a group of the house’s employees wheel in a large tank filled with water. The lights in the waiting room were dim, but as the tank came closer he could see some sort of trollish shape inside; he peered closer when it finally came to a stop just a few feet away, and was shocked when a grey face that seemed all sharp, needle-like teeth and purple-lined fins suddenly slammed up against the glass, accompanied by two webbed hands that produced barely-audible squeaks as they scratched the invisible barrier with helpless fury. He jumped back with a startled exclamation, prompting a few derisive laughs from the handlers and a few other slaves, but otherwise no one took much notice. He flushed with embarrassment anyway, watching as the seadweller, clad only in a pair of purple shorts tight enough to border on indecency, threw itself at the lid of the tank in a frenzy of rage.

The muscles of its masculine chest stood out in sharp relief as it braced itself against the side of the tank and shoved at the lid; despite the outlandish gashes that marred its rib cage – Equius supposed they were meant to be gills – it nevertheless seemed to be prime condition. He would have been quite interested in staying and seeing if it could budge the heavy lid, but just then his name was called – it was time for him and Aurthour to take their place on the stage.

Compared to the dimness of the waiting room, the stage was painfully bright. Equius was dazzled by the lights, and would surely never have found his way to his assigned place by the podium if it weren’t for the auctioneer’s patter and the guiding hand of the greenblood on his arm. But in a way, the blindness was a comfort; while he could still hear the audience, he could not see them, and so could not see the way they were looking at him with what he was sure was a mix of greed and contempt. He tried to shut out the faint susurration of their presence, concentrating instead on the auctioneer, who was currently describing his marketable skills.

“ – despite being entirely self-taught, the honorable inspectors have given his skills in the area of mechanical engineering an epsilon rating; who can say what impact proper training might have? But that isn’t the end of it, my honorable lords and ladies.” The auctioneer lowered his voice; out of the corner of his eye Equius could see him lean closer to the vocal amplification device. “The subject possesses quite an unusually prodigious strength, on a level that this house, nor any other in the city, has ever seen before. Out of desperation, the appraisers at last resorted to the classification system used by telekinetics – if our august audience will pardon the liberty -- and rated the subject’s strength at the gamma level.”

Equius’s breath caught in his throat as the audience murmured to itself in surprise; this last part was news to him, for though the appraisers had been very interested in testing the limits of his strength, they had of course neglected to share the final verdict with him. Gamma level was the third highest rating a telekinetic could possibly achieve – and ratings above delta were so rare that he couldn’t help but feel as though an icy spike of fear had just been plunged into his chest. What would become of him if no one bought him today? The Legislacerator had insisted that his proper place was in the hive of a psionic, where he could be properly monitored and controlled – but what if not even the psionics wanted him? Would...would he be culled?

The auctioneer didn’t seem to think so. He was nodding in response to the crowd’s audible, if non-verbal surprise, and after noting that such extreme strength was indeed an unusual trait to have he noted, in an almost casual tone, that further details could be found in the copy of the house catalog that every member of the audience had received at the door. Equius wondered for a wild moment if the auction house had gone so far as to include excerpts from the Legislacerator’s report – and then the bidding began.

The prices being quoted were enough to make his head spin; even the opening bid was more money than he and Nepeta had ever seen. But then it rocketed upward at a rate he would never have expected, the genteel audience turning on itself in a battle that was no less frenzied for all that it was waged with upraised placards and discrete coughs. The auctioneer handled it all with professional aplomb; he at least didn’t seem to be surprised in the slightest. At last two outliers appeared, who continued the bidding for several long seconds after all the rest had dropped out – and then it was over. Equius found himself the property of one Lady Aradia Megido, of the Guild of Death.

The name meant nothing to him, but the auctioneer and the other employees of the house certainly seemed to consider it important. He was rushed off the stage and given a shirt – if having said article thrown into his face could be considered “giving.” He was ordered out of the waiting room, two greenbloods falling into place on either side of him and Aurthour and leading him in what he thought might be the direction of the main atrium – but then someone called out to them, and confusion reigned for a handful of minutes while everyone talked at once. The reason why eventually became clear; it seemed that the Lady Megido wished to meet her new slave in one of the private salons on the auction house’s upper floors, rather than having him brought to her private box in the amphitheater or taking herself down to the bookkeeper’s office as was the norm. Equius was under the impression that something else was going on, something even more unusual, but the greenbloods had this particular way of speaking out of long familiarity with each other and their jobs – they might as well have been talking in code for all the good listening in did him. And of course none of them bothered to explain the situation to him.

He was led to a room on the second floor, where it was his understanding members of the clientele would meet to feed and entertain themselves between auctions. He had rumors that private transactions also occasionally went on in these rooms – but the idea that this Lady Megido would wish to resell him immediately after buying him seemed implausible. He wished he could ask the guards for more information, but the irritated looks on their faces – no doubt in response to the break in routine – forbade questioning. In any case he had learned very early on in his stay here that while he might have been able to get away with addressing greenbloods as near-equals while he masqueraded as Nepeta’s property, such informality would not stand in these rarified circles.

The guard held the salon door open for him, and then closed as soon as soon as he had crossed the threshold, Aurthour close on his heels. They had been left alone with the psionic and her lusus.

She was...beautiful. Equius hadn’t been expecting that; he had never been this close to anyone with blood higher than yellow, and with only the stories of psionic displays of strength to go by he had almost been expecting some kind of fearsome monster, something between a troll and a Tyrant, perhaps. He had certainly not been expecting the delicate maiden who sat at a small table across the room from him now, her chin resting on a slender hand as she glanced up from the copy of the house catalog that she had been perusing.

She was dressed in a maroon robe, the bodice tailored closely to her voluptuous, feminine curves, while the sleeves hung like gossamer drapes from her arms, cascading gently halfway to the floor where her lusus lay curled up just by her feet, its horns a perfect match to the pair that lay nestled in the lady’s exquisite black curls. Her hair was further decorated with a fine gold mesh that glistened in the moonlight, crowned by a large garnet that rested on the forehead of her charming, heart-shaped face. Her lips and eyelids were painted the same dark red as her robe, the same dark red that filled the irises of her eyes, both of them like shining spheres of gold in the spotless grey of her face, and each crowned by a delicate brow that might have been drawn on with ink. One of those brows transformed from a bow to a shapely arch, and Equius belatedly realized that he was staring.

He fell to his knees, cutting off his own view of the lady, and began to stammer an apology. “Forgive me, mistress,” he said, the title feeling strange on his tongue. He’d used it to address Nepeta of course, whenever they were in public, but that was just for show; this was reality, and it terrified him. “I-I meant no offense.” Sweat was already pooling in the small of his back and beading on his face; he tensed further when the lady laughed at him, the sound like a note struck from a silver bell.

“Come here,” she told him; she didn’t _sound_ angry, only amused. He dared to look at her again as he rose to his feet, and found her studying him with what appeared to be great interest. He blushed under her scrutiny, but obeyed the command, crossing the room and, when she told him to take a seat, carefully pulling out the chair arranged across from her and sitting down, Aurthour standing at loose attention just over his shoulder. Though the lusus could not speak, that didn’t mean he wasn’t equally aware of the delicacy the situation required; if anything Equius trusted his custodian to behave properly more than he did himself.

The lady’s attention had turned back to the catalog; Equius lowered his gaze, trying to avoid falling back into the trap he had already tripped once. The table was set for two, every implement appearing to be of the highest quality materials; the exquisitely painted teapot, resting on a complicated doily in the exact center of the table, seemed almost to glow with the heat of the liquid it contained. Normally being in the presence of such expensive delicacy would have made Equius feel like a beefbeast in a porcelain repository cabinet – and indeed, part of him was cringing away from the table, as if a stray breath might have shattered the cup and saucer set before him – but the main body of his attention was taken up by the silver-like hand with which the Lady Megido slowly turned the pages of the catalog. Her nails were painted with a pearlescent maroon lacquer, and around her middle finger rested a golden ring, adorned with a garnet alike in shape and beauty to the larger one on her forehead. From the ring hung suspended a fine mesh of golden wire that covered the back of her hand, bejeweled with tiny glittering beads, and attached to a likewise golden bracelet around her wrist.

A single elegantly manicured finger tapped the catalog, snapping Equius out of his reverie just in time to look up and catch the lady’s questioning glance. “Did you really destroy a Gamblignant tank?” she asked him; most people would surely have been shocked or made suspicious by such a claim, but she seemed only mildly intrigued. He, meanwhile, had grimaced and looked back down at the table. So they had included the Legislacerator’s report after all...

“It was...actually a retired military vehicle that the Gamblignants had stolen, mistress,” he said slowly, unsure how much detail the catalog had given her and not wanting to be seen as deceitful. “Or so I was later told. But I was only trying to defend my owner.” The memory was still fresh in his mind; Nepeta’s cry of pain, her blood staining the sand – the blue veil that had descended over his vision.

He had come back to himself in the midst of a field of shattered metal, face down in the bloody sand with Nepeta pounding on his back and sobbing, begging him to _stop_ –

“As displays of loyalty go, it certainly sounds commendable,” the Lady Megido said, leaving the catalog where it lay on the tablecloth and lacing her delicate fingers beneath her chin. “One wonders why she went on to sell you.”

“It wasn’t her choice,” he said immediately, a fresh crop of sweat prickling his brow. The urge to defend Nepeta was too deeply ingrained to ignore, but he forced himself to adopt a softer, more deferential tone as he continued. “There was an investigation not too long after the attack –“ The two of them had been working as caravan guards, and as soon as the captain of the caravan had recovered from his shock, he’d placed them both under arrest. He’d seemed so _relieved_ to see them handed over to the Legislacerator as soon as they’d reached the next city, even though Nepeta had nearly died trying to protect his charges. “—The Legislacerator felt I would be better off in the hivehold of a powerful psionic, who would be better equipped to, ah, control me...” His palms were growing damp with sweat. Equius wondered, half-hysterically, if the lady would notice if he dried them on the legs of his pants.

The memory was still fresh in his mind: the Legislacerator leaning over the back of Nepeta’s chair, hand tight in her hair while he whispered into her ear, informing her that she hadn’t _yet_ broken any laws, there wasn’t a minimum age requirement on claiming salvage after all, but oh, there were quite a few laws regarding the proper compliance due a Legislacerator...

He’d been speaking to Nepeta, but his eyes had been on Equius; he’d seen right through their charade, of that Equius was somehow certain. So he’d begged Nepeta to cooperate, despite her anger and tears; he could not bear to see her come to harm...Even if it meant never seeing her again.

“And yet you are a mechanic,” the lady said, unknowingly intruding on his thought. “You’ve surely handled delicate objects...?” She was still watching him intently; Equius could not help but recall some of the wilder stories he’d heard, of psionics who could hear the thoughts of others.

“Of course, mistress,” he said, the title coming out more easily this time – but he could not help the way he hesitated slightly over the next words to pass his lips. “My...previous owner insisted on it.”

“Really,” the lady said, and while Equius hesitated, unsure how to answer, she sat back in her chair. “I believe a demonstration is in order,” she continued, and gestured at the teapot with a single elegant sweep of her exquisitely adorned hand. “Pour for me.”

For a handful of seconds, Equius could do nothing but stare at her in abject astonishment. It...It wasn’t as though he had never performed this exact task for Nepeta before – her liking for tea was so intense it bordered on an addiction – but never under anything like these circumstances, and never with a tea set that looked so _delicate_. Nepeta favored thick stoneware for everyday use; she owned a second set of very respectable porcelain, but it spent nearly all its time wrapped up and carefully crated, only seeing moonlight on the rare occasions they spent more than a night or two in one place – and the set currently laid out on the table before him was _so_ fine, so obviously of the _highest_ quality, that it made even that carefully guarded second set look a tray full of stones.

Lady Megido was watching him intently; Equius had no desire to discover what would become of him if he displeased her now. With a thick swallow he pushed his chair back and stood, reaching for the teapot. Just closing his fingers around the slender handle without snapping it felt like a victory, but the task of actually picking the tea pot up and pouring the tea still remained. He was abruptly aware of a trickle of sweat winding down his back, almost as distracting as the lady’s eyes.

Somehow he was able to complete the task without incident, though the entire experience left him trembling with the effort of controlling his strength. He sagged back into his seat with a barely-stifled sound of relief, too exhausted to do more than idly wish for a towel – but the linen napkin the lady gave him made a handy substitute. He watched her with a sort of horrified wonder as he carefully mopped his brow and she stirred two nectarous hexahedrons into her tea, wondering what would happen next...But the possibility that she might take a single sip and then smile at him, radiant and beautiful, didn’t even enter his mind.

“Most impressive,” she murmured, casting him an appraising glance through her delicate curled eyelashes that made him shiver and sweat anew. “But what of your mechanical skills? I understand you’ve worked with miners?”

“Sometimes, yes,” he answered; while the highly mobile lifestyle he and Nepeta preferred had lent itself more to support positions within the great trading caravans – she as a guard, he as a mechanic – he had taken commission work in Nepeta’s name on several occasions. Building mining equipment was hardly the most creative work there was, but it had paid well; the two of them had even been talking about spending this sweep’s hot bright season in a mining community instead of returning to the wilderness like they usually did...

But this was no time to count up his regrets, and in any case the Lady Megido scarcely gave him a chance to think. She seemed immensely interested in his skills, and questioned him at length; Equius began to form the impression that she had purchased him with some specific project in mind, especially after she displayed open delight at his confession to a predilection for designing his own machines, a skill the appraisers had shown little interest in. Ingenuity wasn’t exactly a skill prized among bluebloods; the Lady Megido’s interest discomfited and intrigued Equius in equal measures, and he wished more than ever that he dared ask her a few questions of his own.

At last she sat back in her chair, looking him over with far more warmth than she’d shown when he first entered the room. “I believe you will do quite nicely,” she murmured mysteriously, and picked up a small bell that had been sitting beside her place setting the entire time. She rang it once, and within a matter of seconds the door had opened, an amberblooded lady wearing the vest of the house peering inside anxiously.

“I am quite satisfied,” the Lady Megido told her. “Bring me the paperwork.”


	5. The Magician

Equius’ head was still spinning as the Lady Megido led him out of the auction house, their respective lusii in tow. He still couldn’t entirely believe what had just happened. He’d stood before the auction block, and been bidden upon by a wealthy psionic – that much had been clear from the beginning. But then she’d had him brought to her for a private interview – and here was the part he could scarcely credit – she’d apparently refused to take official ownership of him until after she’d spoken to him in person and satisfied herself as to his ability to meet her needs. Stranger yet, the employees of the house – the greenbloods who delivered Equius to the lady, the amberblood who brought her the paperwork, even the brownblooded official who oversaw the signing – all had behaved in a manner confirming Equius’s impression that this was behavior outside the norm. And yet, not one of them had protested.   
Who _was_ this Lady Megido? From what source did she draw this influence over the actions of those who should have been her equal? She moved through the world as though she expected all paths to be opened to her – and the gatekeepers practically fell over themselves leaping out of her way.

Yet he had only known her for less than an hour, Equius thought to himself. There was no doubt some perfectly normal explanation for all of this, and who knew? He might even learn it for himself in time. But at the moment, he was far more interested in learning something new about _himself_ ; specifically what it was about him that had attracted such an august person’s notice. But there too explanations were lacking; the lady had scarcely paid him more than a glance once the paperwork was signed, sweeping out of the elegant salon that had been the site of their interview and down the stairs without even looking back to confirm he was following. She made a single detour by the doors leading back to the great auditorium and the auction block and made a quiet inquiry to one of the ushers, which Equius, marveling at her ability to move so quickly in such a flattering dress and under the weight of so much jewelry, missed completely. And then she was moving on, not to the double doors that served as the house’s primary exit, but to the loading dock in the back – she seemed anxious about something, and this mystery, at least, was answered in a matter of minutes.

A motorized four-wheeled device with a flatbed for carrying large items had been pulled up to the loading dock – and even as Equius followed the Lady Megido outside, a small crew of greenbloods were in the process of loading just such an item. It was an extremely large glass tank, roughly twice the height of the average troll and about half a height across, and filled to the firmly latched-down lid with water. Equius was not surprised to realize that it held the seadweller he’d encountered before, even if he hadn’t expected to see it ever again. It appeared to have left all its defiance by the auction block, in favor of pressing itself into the corner furthest from the work crew and visibly flinching at every sound produced by the smaller motorized device they were using to shift its unwieldy tank. This second device was equipped with a sort of large, flat metal fork on its front, which the driver of the device was using to lift the tank; Equius was intimately familiar with such devices due to the sweeps he had spent working for trading caravans, and privately thought to the seadweller was in little danger – but of course it couldn’t be expected to realize that.

Equius had only a moment to contemplate the seadweller, however, for his attention was quickly caught by a brightly-colored figure, perched on the roof of the motorized four-wheeled device. It was another troll, clad in an outlandish blue and red robe that had, for no practical reason that Equius could see, been cut to only cover one leg. Beneath the robe he wore an extremely short yellow tunic; short enough that from this angle his black tights were only barely sufficient for guarding his modesty. Equius began to sweat once more and quickly fixed his eyes on the man’s face – which proved to be both easier and harder than he would have expected, for the man’s face was strange enough to match his clothes. His horns were doubled, a smaller set of slightly curved peaks resting inside the identical curve of the larger set, which _might_ have been unusual enough if it weren’t for his eyes. A pair of mismatched glasses, one lens blue and the other red, only served to highlight his mutation. To his horror, Equius realized that he was staring again, and was just looking for somewhere else to rest his gaze when the man suddenly spotted them.

“A-A!” he called out, waving enthusiastically. He pronounced each letter separately; it took Equius a moment to realize he was calling out to the Lady Megido, and by then the man in red and blue had already hopped down from the cab of the four wheeled device and was rushing their way, arms outstretched.

The Lady Megido accepted a hug from him, but her eyes were on the tank and its occupant. “Sollux,” she said slowly, in a long-suffering tone that triggered a pang in Equius’ chest. How many times had he used nearly that exact tone with Nepeta? “Please tell me that isn’t _your_ seadweller.”

The man in red and blue just laughed, bouncing in place on the balls of his feet. “Nah,” he said after a moment, pushing his glasses up onto his forehead so he could rub his eyes. Equius carefully averted his gaze, lest he begin staring again. “I just happened to be in the area, thought I’d supervise the greenies for the hell of it.” He had a pronounced lisp, no doubt due to the overly-large fangs that seemed to fill his mouth; it was no doubt a tribute to his elevated class and upbringing that he was able to speak intelligibly at all.

The Lady Megido sighed and crossed her arms. “Of course you were,” she said, quite obviously not sharing the gentleman’s amusement. “The usher I spoke to must have been mistaken when he said you said you won a bidding war against the _Academy of Natural Science._ ”

Despite his best attempts not to eavesdrop, Equius couldn’t help but gasp a little in shock, but the two psionics – for he was now certain that the man must be the Lady Megido’s equal, to speak to her and behave in such a way – ignored him.

“Yeah, like I was going to let those freaks have him,” the yellowblooded lord said, hissing with distaste. “It would have been such a _waste_ \-- I mean, just look at him, AA!” So saying he threw an arm around the Lady Megido’s shoulders, turning her to look at the seadweller in its tank. Equius automatically looked again as well – though he would have been loath to criticize one of such lofty rank, he couldn’t really see the appeal.

It was scrawny, all lanky limbs, pinched face, and narrow chest; Equius supposed there might be some attraction to be found in the firmly toned muscles of the seadweller’s lower legs, but to his mind such qualities were more than outweighed by the garishly purple gashes marring each side of its chest, and the membranous fins jutting from its face. Its demeanor also left a lot to be desired; almost seeming to sense their combined gazes, the seadweller turned to look at the three of them, baring its teeth in a vicious snarl.

“Charming,” the Lady Megido said dryly, turning back to the gentleman. “What in the world are you even going to _do_ with it? Don’t give me that look.” He had raised his eyebrows at her, waggling them salaciously; now he just grinned . “You know how difficult seadwellers are; it’s not going to let you anywhere near it.”

“Oh, I think I can win it over,” the gentleman said confidently; embarrassed to be hearing such a private conversation, Equius focused his attention on the seadweller.

It was a good thing that he had, for the seadweller had apparently grown weary of being moved about and decided to take matters into its own hands. At first Equius had no idea what it was doing; it seemed to be gathering itself up, gaze fixed on the ground below its tank – he suddenly realized its plan a split second before the seadweller launched itself at the nearest glass wall, and shouted a hoarse warning to the greenbloods surrounding the tank. But it was too late; the tank seemed to tip over in slow motion, water pouring through the grated lid as the vast bulk of plated glass and seawater overturned. Equius braced himself for impact – but it never came. The tank hovered in mid-air, contained within a pulsing white halo, and when Equius finally dared to look back, the Lady Megido’s eyes were likewise glowing.

“Nice catch!” the gentleman said, clapping his hands over his mouth as he nearly bent double, snorting with laughter. “Couldn’t have thought that one through very well, could it?” Indeed not; the seadweller appeared entirely unaware of the close brush with death it had just suffered, and at that very moment was throwing itself at the walls and lid of its tank in a boiling rage.

The Lady Megido sighed in exasperation. “You really ought to take better care of your things,” she admonished, her eyes returning to their natural color as the gentleman regained his composure – or at least a small piece of it – and stood upright, red-blue lightning crackling up and down his frame and replacing the white halo around the tank.

“I’ll take it from here, boys,” he called out to the greenbloods, ignoring the lady completely as he began to maneuver the tank onto the flatbed with simple, elegant movements of his hands. The greenbloods moved out with visible relief, apparently disgruntled by the entire affair.

“I suppose you’ll be going straight home, then?” the Lady Megido asked, a new edge entering her voice.

“Obviously.” The gentleman’s impatience was palpable, for all that his back was still turned. “Not like I’d have any reason to hang around _here_ even if I didn’t have a beauty to take home, right?”

“You _promised_.” A man could freeze to death on the ice in the Lady Megido’s voice. Equius had no idea what was going on now; he could only stare in confusion at the two psionics and hope not to be noticed.

“Fucking _hell_ , AA, that’s _three whole nights_ from now!” The gentleman suddenly turned, the half-skirt of his robe whirling around him. The seadweller’s tank now rested safely on the flatbed, but the gentleman’s eyes were still glowing, and though there was no psionic lightning in evidence the air between him and the Lady Megido still seemed charged with incandescent fury.

“And you made a promise,” the Lady Megido said, implacable. Her face was like stone.

“So I’ll be there.” The gentleman raked the fingers of one hand through his hair, leaving several strands standing on end. “Fuck, it’s not like I need you to nag me about every little thing, you know. I am capable of taking care of myself.”

“Now that remains to be seen,” the lady said, but all the same it appeared that _something_ had been settled between the two. The Lady Megido relaxed, and the gentleman’s eyes stopped glowing. “Enjoy your seadweller, then,” she said with exaggerated generosity; the gentleman’s only response was an irritated huff as he turned away, not even deigning to give her a proper farewell.

Equius was entirely mystified, but he had no choice but to follow the Lady Megido as she likewise turned and walked away. She led him back to the side of the auction house facing the street, where another motorized four wheeled device was waiting for them, this one with two separate interior compartments; a small one in front for the driver, who saluted the Lady Megido before taking his place inside, and the second large enough to accommodate both the lady and Equius, and the two lusii as well. Nostalgia mixed with regret roiled in Equius’ chest as he boarded the device; there would have been plenty of room for all the tools, half-finished devices, and notebooks he hadn’t been allowed to keep. He wondered what Nepeta had done with them all; hopefully she had seen the wisdom of selling them off.

“Once you’ve settled in,” the Lady Megido began; Equius startled, nearly breaking his seat before regaining a minimum degree of self-control. After such a lengthy silence, he had almost begun to wonder if the lady still remembered his presence. Fortunately she hadn’t seen his near-blunder; her attention seemed equally divided between the motorized device’s open window and her own lusus, which had stretched out along the seat with her, opposite Equius and Aurthour, and rested its head in her lap. The Lady Megido was petting its head slowly as she continued, “I want you to convene with my majordomo. Prepare a list of the equipment one generally finds in a robotics workshop; she’ll see that you receive everything you need.”

“...Yes Mistress,” Equius said after a moment, when nothing else seemed to be forthcoming. The rest of the trip was passed in silence.

It seemed the Lady Megido’s home rested on one of the city’s communal hive stems. As Equius meekly followed her out of the motorized four wheel device, he realized with a sort of shocked wonder that he could see the spires of the six Guilds dividing up the sky. They were quite close; perhaps even within walking distance. The urban lawnring surrounding the Lady Megido’s hive stem was suitably grand for such close proximity to the center of government; each stem seemed a living thing, a far cry from the petrified husks Equius was used to seeing in lesser cities. Every last one had been brought to bloom, the flowers hanging from the sides of each stem and the bottoms of the hives in vast, gently glowing streams that waved and twinkled in the faint breeze, releasing a heady perfume, not unlike the scent of fresh blood, into the air. Equius was profoundly grateful to the Lady Megido for not objecting to his gawking as they entered her hive’s private bidirectional motorized lifting device, its crystalline walls casting a slight distortion over the vista surrounding them, making it seem like something out of a dream.

And yet it was no dream, and however beautiful they may have been the wonders that surrounded him couldn’t even begin to make up for what he had lost. The Lady Megido left him in the entryway to her hive without a backwards glance, disappearing through a doorway while he was still looking around in confusion. He’d been expecting – he wasn’t even entirely sure _what_ he’d been expecting. A cold, soulless palace, perhaps, the interior of the hive constructed from marble and metal, and every surface shining – or perhaps a glittering vice-den, all soft pillows and soporific smoke, though after the way the Lady Megido had spoken to her yellowblooded compatriot the latter scenario seemed extremely unlikely.

But in the event, the lady’s hive matched neither description. The walls were the same dark green as the hive stem – because they were _part_ of the hive stem; Equius realized, as he noticed several places where the natural grain of the structure formed knots and dimples in the walls. The Lady Megido hadn’t bothered to cover her hive’s natural walls, except for a faded tapestry hung opposite the door, depicting a rusty-brownblooded woman, simply dressed, in the act of spinning thread with the assistance of an old-fashioned foot-operated wooden device. Equius couldn’t help but wonder at the lady’s choice in subject matter, as well as the rest of her decorative choices, for the remaining two walls of the block were lined with glass-doored bookcases lined with esoteric knick-knacks of every description, the only point of similarity age and apparent fragility. Despite – or perhaps because of – the meager protection the glass offered, Equius could not help but break out in a sweat at the thought of being surrounded by so much undoubtedly precious breakables.

It was in that state that the lady’s majordomo found him; a bespectacled woman with a yellowish-green sign on the breast pocket of her long, tightly buttoned black coat, she stared at him coldly before bidding him follow her.

“I am _Madam_ Muroid,” she informed him, with a peculiar emphasis on her title. Equius didn’t dare ask after the first half of her name, not that she had given him the chance; she rushed on, both verbally and on foot, as though eager to wash her hands of him. Her hair had been tied back into a thick braid; it seemed to wag at him like a disapproving finger as she continued. “The lady hasn’t seen fit to outline your duties just yet, but that doesn’t give you an excuse to be idle. You will do everything the lady and I tell you, and I expect you to see to the comfort of our lusii as well. Is your lusus cooperative?” And here she suddenly wheeled around to glare at him, her braid snapping in a perfect arc behind her.

Equius was so taken aback by what seemed to him a sudden shift in topic that he could only stammer out a “Yes?” hastily amended into a “Yes, madam.” Momentarily placated, Muroid turned away once more, opening the door to what appeared to be a small storage block, its shelves stacked with artificially-fabricated membranous bottles of cleaning solution.

“We keep the spare sopor in here,” Muroid told him, indicating a box on the floor containing several larger, floppy membranous sacs, each about the same size as his chest. At a pointed look from her, Equius hastily knelt down and gathered up two of the sacs, tucking them under each arm. She appeared unable to contain her look of surprise and dismay; he in turn couldn’t keep an outraged flush off his face when she gathered herself and continued, “The door isn’t locked, but I keep track of _everything_ that enters and leaves this hive; don’t think I won’t notice if you help yourself to extra.”

Equius had met a handful of sopor addicts before, not all of them bluebloods; Nepeta would have been quick to point this out, but he bore the insult in silence, following Muroid further down the hall. She’d been nothing but cold to him this entire time, but her voice now was positively glacial as she opened another door.

“I suppose we might as well keep you here,” she snapped, plainly agitated by something, but what Equius had no idea. “Make yourself at home; Vallia will be along to show you the rest of the hive when she’s finished her more important duties.” This time she didn’t even give Equius time to acknowledge her; she turned on her heel and stomped off back the way they’d came, muttering to herself. Had she even realized that she’d left him standing in the hallway? Equius and Aurthour exchanged a puzzled look, but thankfully the lusus was as steady-minded as ever. He quickly ushered Equius into the respiteblock he’d been reluctantly assigned, closing the door behind them both.

The block had very little worth recommending. Oh, it seemed comfortable enough; the recuperacoon was nice and roomy, and had been wrapped in an artificially fabricated membrane to keep out the dust – Aurthour immediately set to unwrapping it, while Equius set down the sacs on the tile floor and glanced around for an electric outlet – while on the far wall there was a very fine four-legged writing platform, and a seat to go with it; but nothing else. Even the hostel blocks he and Nepeta had shared had usually contained a receiver set and a picture or two on the walls to break up the monotony; this block was as blank and bare as a cell.

In that moment, Equius felt as though he could see his entire life stretching before him. He would spend the rest of his nights in this block, in this hive, obeying the commands of a greenblood who inexplicably despised him and a psionic with motives impenetrable. He would build what they told him to build, when they told him to build it, not because he found the work interesting or because he needed to provide for his moirail, but because he had no choice. And there lay the most painful card in the hand he’d been dealt; he would live the rest of his life without Nepeta.

Feeling as though his strength had left him, Equius all but collapsed into the seat by the four-legged writing platform, hiding his face in his hands while he struggled to regain control of his emotions. Despair gripped his pulse-beater; he was vaguely aware of Aurthour abandoning the recuperacoon and rushing to his side, the lusus’ hands coming to rest on his shoulders, but it was several long minutes before Equius could even muster the will to look up and give his custodian a reassuring smile.

“Well,” he said quietly, his own voice sounding stiff and unnatural as he tried to inject it with good cheer for Aurthour’s sake. “It seems we’ve moved up in the world, haven’t we old boy...?”

Aurthour only looked at him impassively; after a moment even the false cheer became too much to bear, and Equius’ gaze again fell to his own two hands. “I miss her,” he quietly confessed, putting voice for the first time to the feelings that had torn at him since the moment he had turned away, putting Nepeta’s safety above the bond they shared. He had dared not say anything until now; why would a simple slave prefer one master over another? Even now, alone in an empty respiteblock with his lusus, he dared not say more.


	6. The Marquise

Had it been any other time of sweep, he would surely have died in the open desert. The sun, had it risen, would have scorched his skin, and the revenants that slept beneath the sand would surely have torn him apart. But this was the second dark season, and the nights were long, long enough for him to make the crossing despite his injuries.

How had things gone so wrong, so quickly? His captain’s stars had been on the rise ever since the last dim season, when their crew had led the charge against a distant Cavalreaper outpost. They’d cut straight into the heart of the complex, where the armored vehicles were stored; even now he could remember the brutal _power_ that had surged through him when he first leapt into the auxiliary gunner’s chair, bolted to the tank’s roof, and barked at one of his comrades to start the ammo feed. He could hear their leader laughing, somewhere out in the hazy brightness; he laughed with her, and cut down every green and brownblood he saw.

And then, less than a full season later, another victory. His captain was given the tank, and told to leave the oasis they all called home; to traverse the desert, and be like a scourge on the backs of any merchants or Cavalreapers he found. It was a mission both captain and crew had accepted with vicious glee, for what better path to further glory than through the wealth they would bring back with them? As he took his place once more in the gunner’s chair, he’d looked out on the empty desert, and seen himself returning a hero.

Some hero; his comrades were all dead, the tank destroyed, and he shuddered to think what his leader would say. Had he any choice about it, he might have considered deserting – but what kind of choice was that? He had no money, for all the good it would have done him, no weapons – he didn’t even have the use of both arms. His right arm had been very badly broken; he couldn’t even bear to look at the splinters of black bone agonizingly showing through his lacerated skin, and sending a bolt of pain down his side with every step. His memories of the journey homeward were like a single, cloudy mass of pain and terror; he suspected, with borderline hysteria, that he’d spent the entire trip in a state of shock. His mind felt almost clear now, however, his first sight of _home_ both balm and source of renewed fear.

The headquarters of the Gamblignants was like a paradise in the midst of hell; surrounded on all sides by unbroken desert, it lay directly on top of one of the few natural sources of water the land had to offer. Sweeps upon sweeps ago the leader of the Gamblignants, the fearsome Marquise, had wrested the oasis from its owner and slain the virgin mother grub that dug it, thus cementing her reputation for both tender regard when it came to her loyal followers and utter ruthlessness when it came to everyone else. The Marquise had used the oasis and the hive at its center as a base of operations ever since, and though this was by far not the only Gamblignant settlement, it was without doubt the most important. Nearly a full score and a half of vicious warriors called the oasis home, to say nothing of the handful of slaves who had been claimed as living spoils of war, and now lived only to serve their rightful, blueblooded masters.

As the refugee crested a hard packed crimson dune he couldn’t help but pick up the pace, staggering eagerly towards the cooking fires and electric lights that marked the center of the settlement – but his broken arm protested the jostling, and he cried out, stumbling and falling to his knees. Maybe it was just as well; the sound attracted a group of sentries, and within minutes he was surrounded by familiar faces, all staring at him and talking at once.

“Back off,” one of the trolls standing over him suddenly barked; looking up with eyes pinched almost-closed with pain, he could just barely make out the iron epaulette of a captain. It had to be the leader of the watch; he was already issuing orders, singling out two of the onlookers to fetch a stretcher and ordering the rest back several paces, giving the refugee room to breathe. He sagged further, lightheaded with pain and relief, but tried to force his eyes back open when the captain suddenly kneeled in front of him.

“Hebron, isn’t it?” the captain asked, brusque concern and distaste mingling in his voice as he looked over the refugee’s injuries.

It took a moment to find his voice, he’d been so long without water, but he was still able to nod. After a moment he added in a harsh, unfamiliar voice, “K-Kitran, sir. Kitran Hebron.”

The captain nodded, seeming about to speak further -- but then the two warriors were back with the stretcher. Kitran cried out as he was roughly loaded onto it, mercifully losing consciousness immediately.

***

The first thing he saw when he woke up was the navy walls of the medical tent, the small electric lights strung along the ceiling burning his eyes. His throat burned as well, far more than it had when he passed out. Had he screamed in his sleep? Probably; his shoulder, he quickly discovered, was weighted down with a splint and several layers of bandages, and the Gamblignant medical team wasn’t exactly known for their tender care. Far more pressing than curiosity, however, was his thirst; but with his arm immobilized, he couldn’t even sit up.

“Water,” he croaked at the ceiling, already preparing himself for a long wait until somebody heard and took pity on him – but to his surprise help came immediately, in the form of a cool metal cup pressed gently to his lips, while a velvet-lined glove slowly lifted his head with equal care. He drank gratefully, and when both cup and hand withdrew he followed them with his eyes, looking to his uninjured side.

“My lady,” he whispered, fearfully and respectfully, for the marquise herself sat by his cot. Vriska Serket, clad in a heavy frock coat with silver glittering from her waistcoat and horns, smiled at him gently, her eightfold eyes twinkling with inner mirth. All Gamblignants knew to fear that look, for the Marquise was at her most dangerous when she was amused.

“Canren,” she told him quietly, referring to her universally loathed second-in-command, “tells me that you must be a traitor, sent back by the rest of your crew to cover their tracks.” Her voice, her eyes; all seemed to treat her words as a private joke, meant for just the two of them, and Kitran couldn’t help but let out a shocked, painful laugh.

“Not on my life,” he said fervently, stumbling over the words in his haste to get them out.   
“I would never...none of us would...they’re all dead.” At last he came to the bitter truth, and it burned at his throat more than the desert ever had. “We were attacked,” he said, blinking hard. His body had no water to spare for tears, but still his eyes burned with sorrow and impotent fury. “We attacked a caravan, in the south, but...he...” The lady pressed a silencing finger to his lips, shaking her head; Kitran trailed off, staring at her, willing her to believe him.

“Save your words,” she advised him, trailing her fingertips, soft as a spider’s web, up to his temple. “I don’t need them.”

Kitran trembled fearfully, eyes locked on the lady’s mutant eye, the seven-pupiled one, as it swung round to focus on his face. “No, please...” he croaked, fearing whatever would come next over the loss of his already tattered dignity.

The lady marquise stroked his cheek, delight making her smile widen until he could both of her razor-sharp eye teeth, shining in the shadow she cast over him like a spider’s fangs. “Shall I hand you over to Canren, then?” she said, not unkindly. “I’m sure he would enjoy the discussion...Though I couldn’t say the same for you...” He shuddered with disgust and terror; she against pressed her fingers to his temple, pushing his head back against the unforgiving cot like a spider presses its prey into the silken strands of its web. “Let me in,” she said, and now her voice was hard, commanding; he had no choice but to obey. The prey at last surrendering itself, the spider struck: to the marquise it was as though the world suddenly expanded around her, her eightfold gaze boring first through the refugee’s skin, then into his skull and brain, and then at last her powers found purchase on his mind. The events of three perigees, three rotations of the pink moons ago, unfolded around her.

She found herself in the gunner’s chair, the tank she had so generously given Hebron’s captain rattling beneath her boots and a battlefield spread before her. Limited by the perspective of the mind she rode, she could only look where Hebron had looked, see what he had seen. But his mind, quivering fearfully in her gasp, was more than happy to fill in the gaps, and tell her everything Hebron knew about this caravan. It was...yes, it was a gift from one of her contacts in a trading city on the far edge of the desert. A weakwilled, mewling greenblood: she had easily bent him to her will without even requiring her mental abilities. Now he sold out ill-planned and poorly defended caravans such as the one she now beheld for paltry bribes, especially compared to the material wealth the Gamblignants amassed using his information.

So what gone wrong here...? The caravan’s defenses were in shambles; two trucks had been overturned, and several of the detestable greenbloods had already attempted to abandon their vehicles, retreating into the desert only to be picked off by Gamblignant snipers. As the tank rattled beneath her, ponderously turning into another pass down the length of the caravan, Hebron’s eyes spotted a small figure in a green coat climbing atop one of the gunnery trucks and attempting to mount a new line of defense: he picked her off with ease.

The enraged shout reached Hebron’s ears mere seconds later, loud enough to carry over both gunfire and the movement of the tank; she felt his mind go blank with surprise for a precious handful of seconds before his training reasserted himself, and he swung the gun around to track the shout. She caught but the briefest glimpse of a tall figure, swathed against the desert cold in a long, black coat, before it closed on the tank and disappeared from her view. And then the entire vehicle seemed to shudder, to tip – but how could that be? There was no time for recollections; Hebron was thrown clear of his post, landing some distance away. He landed poorly; the impact of his arm against the hard packed sand shattered the bone, and to her frustration he blacked out.

But his tale had not reached its natural end; by and by he awoke, eventually opening his eyes and looking around. The moons had changed positions in the sky, and the caravan had long since absconded; he was surrounded by blueblooded corpses and wreckage that, after a moment’s confusion, both he and the Marquise recognized as the tank. He could not yet muster either the strength or desperation to force himself to his feet; he crawled awkwardly from body to body, his broken arm trailing behind him in the sand, and tallied up the faces of the dead.

Satisfied, Vriska relaxed her hold on him, blinking against the electric likes as she returned to the waking world. Hebron blinked as well, eyes filling with tears as everything he had suffered weighed on him once more. Vriska looked at him dispassionately.

“So, not a traitor at all,” she said, pitching her voice low so that no one other than Hebron would hear. They were alone in the medical tent, other than a single attendant sitting quietly by the entrance; she was sure of the attendant’s loyalty, and didn’t care to risk endangering it through misunderstanding or rumor. Hebron’s eyes focused on her through his tears; she could see comprehension dawn on him, and relief spread across his face.

“No, my lady,” he said fervently, his voice cracking as he tried, and failed, to raise it above a whisper. “My only thought was to warn you, I swear –“

Again she shushed him. “So I see,” she said, and fixed her face into a gentle smile. “And you’ve done it admirably. You have my gratitude. But,” she continued, “I can’t have you spreading your story across the camp, now can I?”

Indeed not. What would her Gamblignants do, if they suspected a violent and powerful psionic was wandering the desert as a caravan guard? She’d never get them out of the camp! Her mind was not yet entirely disentangled from Hebron’s; it was as though her mind loomed over his, fangs glittering. She struck again, before hope had a chance to flee his face: this was his reward.

She left the screaming corpse that had once been Kitran Hebron lying in its cot, pausing for a brief moment by the wide-eyed attendant as she set the collar of her coat to rights. “One wonders at the boldness of these deserters,” she said to her, “Thinking they can cover their tracks by sacrificing one of their own.” She snorted quietly with disdain; recovering her wits, the attendant nodded.

“Should I send for a lusus, milady?” the attendant asked. Vriska nodded, already halfway out of the tent.

“I believe so, but put him out of his misery first,” she said, with a vague wave over her shoulder. “There’s no need to upset anyone.” The attendant’s assent was cut off by the fall of the tent flap. The thick canvas did little to muffle the dead troll’s screams, but it hardly mattered; within less than a minute, he’d been silenced, and nobody dared give the Marquis more than the briefest of questioning looks as, satisfied with her work, she walked across the camp towards the sole permanent structure, the shining white tower of her hive.

Her second in command, Canren Shayur, caught up to her just outside the door. “So, I was right after all?” he asked, with a glance back the way she’d came, where no doubt even now a group of Gamblignant lusii were dividing the body of the dead troll between them.

“As usual,” Vriska snapped, the matter of the psionic weighing on her mind and robbing her of her usual patience for Canren’s unctuous ways. Sometime she enjoyed the way he fawned over her, so grateful for saving his life and sanity all those seasons ago, but not tonight. “Make sure the rest know it; I don’t want to lose any more crews this season.” Her Gamblignants were a cowardly, capricious lot; at times daring and defiant, but then slipping back into the fear that had been beaten into them over the course of their lives. Calling the dead troll’s crew a pack of deserters was a useful myth, for when the wreckage was eventually discovered it would be clear to all that the shortsighted fools had obviously bitten off more than they could chew. If they had only followed the lady Marquise’s orders, they would still be alive – her loyal followers would take the lesson to heart.

Sensing his leader’s sour mood – and perhaps mistaking it for distaste or a weak stomach? Oh, how it irritated her that she could not read his mind! – Canren gave her a small, secretive smile and bowed himself away. Vriska turned her back on him with a huff of irritation, and let herself into her tower.

The stairwell seemed even cooler than the outside air; it was a welcome relief during the bright seasons, but now Vriska mounted the stairs quickly, not even bothering to unbutton her coat until she had reached the upper floor. The windows had been tightly shuttered, and lit braziers strategically placed around the open block; now the Marquise removed her coat, leaving it and her sword belt in a heap behind her as she crossed the block and threw herself in a pile of brightly colored cushions arranged against the far wall, the woven cloth streamers that hung in gentle arcs from the ceiling stirred into gentle waves by the breeze of her passing. Vriska watched them swing, her thoughts slowly turning over the matter of the psionic guard. Out of long habit, her right hand rose out of the cushions, fingers slowly moving up her thigh, belly, before coming to rest on her right breast – she sat up with a start.

Her coat still lay on the floor, several feet away; Vriska glared at it, holding still for a moment as she listened carefully for any sound of movement within the adjourning blocks of her hive. There wasn’t a sound; she was quite alone. Moving quickly, she surged to her feet and crossed the room in three great strides, snatching up her coat as though she possessed a personal vendetta against it and rummaging through an inner pocket, until she’d retrieved the object she wanted: a small book, bound in age-blacked leather, with a blue crest on the front cover. With a soft sigh of relief, she let her coat fall once more to the ground and returned to the cushion pile.

That book...She could not bear to be parted from it. It had been written centuries ago by the first leader of the Gamblignants, the Marquise Spinneret Mindfang. More than a mere idol, the current Marquise considered Mindfang her savior. She had been only a few seasons past six when she discovered the book in the private library of her then-owner; how he came to possess it she neither knew nor cared, but the sign on the cover had been like a galvanizing shock to her brutalized mind. On one point and one point only was she grateful to the child broker who had purchased her from the Legislacerators: she had seen to it that Vriska retained her ability to read, a skill all too many blue and indigobloods lost from disuse. And read she had: she had filched the book from her owner’s library immediately and read it in secret by daylight, her fascination with the author’s story overcoming her fear of her owner. It had been this book that first taught her how to use her particular gifts. Her Vision Eightfold had been obvious to all from the beginning, and the child broker had allowed her to experiment with it under close supervision, no doubt with an eye towards increasing her value, but it was not until she passed under the tutelage of a centuries-dead troll that Vriska became aware of her other gift: the ability to read and influence the minds of others. Would that her powers matched her inspiration and mentor more precisely!

The world had changed since Mindfang’s day. Psionics and other warm-blooded trolls had once held a place little better than the one occupied by blues and indigos now, their minds beaten into submission by the weight of an uncaring aristocracy and proving little challenge to the manipulations of the first Marquise. Mindfang had once seized control of an entire stadium full of trolls and used them as a weapon against her enemy, but to attempt a similar stunt now would have been suicide. The six Guilds, established long ago to hone the minds of young psionics, had done their job too well. Vriska could spy, could sometimes exert a small, subtle influence, but nothing more. Only non-psionics and greenbloods retained their mental vulnerability.

On the bright side, she had found her gift far more useful than Mindfang ever had, when it came to dealing with her fellow bluebloods. Her caste’s ancestral resistance to psychic interference had been largely beaten out of them by centuries of slavery; now all but the strongest-willed were vulnerable to her predation, though for morale’s sake she pretended to require her victim’s cooperation. It was good for her Gamblignants to fear her a little, but not too much. She didn’t want any them to forget who had broken their chains and reminded them of the life they _deserved_ : a life of freedom and dominance.

And speaking of dominance...There was a faint creaking by the door, as a little mouse climbed the stairs. Vriska looked up an expectant smirk, meeting the eyes of the humble creature who hesitantly slipped into the block. Vriska was pleased to see her personal slave’s eyes widen with sudden anxiety as she looked into her master’s face, before casting her gaze to the ground and dropping into a deep curtsy. Spying the crumpled coat and sword belt lying on the ground, she slowly crept closer, sweeping back her dirt-streaked skirts with practiced ease and taking off her stained work gloves. The gloves went into a deep pocket sewn into her skirt; Vriska watched with the satisfaction of a craftswoman viewing her masterwork as the slave fastidiously checked her hands for dirt before carefully picking up the coat and belt, holding both items well away from her body as she turned and placed them on the rack by the door.

“Come here,” Vriska said to her slave’s back; the slave visibly twitched with surprise, casting a fearful look over her shoulder. But she came nonetheless, and knelt on the ground by Vriska’s feet. Vriska smiled.

“Darling Kanaya,” she purred, placing one slender finger under her slave’s chin and tilting it up so she could look into those familiar, jade-green eyes. Kanaya’s lips twitched, before slowing curving into a small, hesitant smile; Vriska didn’t need to be a mind reader to see how her slave struggled to divine the desired response from her mistress’ changeable heart. She slowly traced the gentle bow of that smile with her thumb, frowning as she encountered a patch of wind-chapped roughness. Kanaya’s brow knit with fear, but there was no need for verbal chastisement – she knew her duty. Vriska continued her inspection, passing over the dirt that besmirched her slave’s face and plain clothing with a sneer of barely-restrained disgust before picking up Kanaya’s hands. At first all seemed well, her slave’s hands as smooth and soft as they were meant to be, but then Vriska turned them over to check the palms. On Kanaya’s right hand, at the base of her thumb, was a small blister, scarcely larger than the nail of her smallest finger. Kanaya’s expression scarcely had time to change before the pain came, one of her mistress’ carefully manicured claws stabbing into the soft, puffy skin of the blister, popping it and drawing blood from the tender flesh beneath.

“What’s this?” Vriska hissed, her voice soft with mounting fury. Kanaya cowered, flinching away from the inevitable strike, but Vriska was too fast for her. She caught Kanaya by the hair, by the short, soft hair at the base of her skull, and yanked, hard enough to force both Kanaya’s head back and a strangled cry of pain from her throat. “How _dare_ you,” Vriska snarled, and seized Kanaya by the throat, shoving her back down onto the floor. She felt liquid warmth well over her fingertips as her nails sank into Kanaya’s skin.

“I gave you one responsibility,” she snapped, and shook her slave by the grip on her throat. Kanaya was whimpering with fear and pain, her soft, pale hands uselessly fluttering over Vriska’s wrists. Vriska shook her harder until she remembered herself and let go, her hands falling submissively to the floor on either side of her head. “Just one!” Vriska was incredulous; how could her humble, broken slave so openly flaunt her orders? Kanaya was trying to say something, her voice choked; tears were welling in her eyes. The sight enraged Vriska further; she raised one hand and slapped Kanaya, knuckles first, and her voice rose to an accusing shout, “Take care of my property!”

She released Kanaya all at once and shoved herself to her feet, stalking towards the door. Behind her Kanaya choked and rolled onto her stomach, scrambling after her on hands and knees. “Please forgive me,” she cried hoarsely, fingers plucking at her mistress’ trousers and boots. “I didn’t mean to,” she said, and then added, as though suddenly inspired, “It wasn’t my fault!”

Her swordbelt lay under her fingertips; Vriska took it down from the coat rack and slid off her scabbard, it and her sword falling to the floor with a clatter, Kanaya’s fearful whimper on its heels. Her back knew that belt very well, and fear of furthering the acquaintanceship made her clutch all the harder at Vriska’s trousers, made her voice turn even more pleading.

“You _told_ me to look after the gardens,” she pointed out, referring to the inhabitants of the oasis’ second most important food source, the first of course being raids. Of the two the gardens could not help but be more reliable – so Vriska paused and gave her slave time to explain herself, though her expression made it plain how little she thought of Kanaya’s excuse.

“I also gave you all the other slaves to help you,” Vriska reminded her. “What was the point of putting you in charge if you can’t even use them properly?”

“I tried!” Kanaya said; she was crying in earnest now. “But there weren’t enough people – most of the other slaves were busy entertaining the warriors.” She hastily wiped her eyes with her sleeve; she knew perfectly well that crying would not endear her to her mistress. “I had to do part of the job myself; if we don’t finish expanding the gardens now there won’t be enough time to plant before the bright season starts.”

“Oh, I see how it is now,” Vriska said, and laughed, to her slave’s obvious surprise and confusion. “You’ve gotten bored ordering the other slaves around, is that it? And now you want to be able to tell my warriors what to do as well?”

Her eyes widening with shock, Kanaya hastily shook her head. “Of course not,” she stammered. “I didn’t mean...I would never dare...”

Laughing once more, Vriska silenced her with a sharp slap across the face. “You forget your place,” she said, deeply amused. “But that’s fine! I shall simply have to think of some way to remind you. Later.” She pointed to the other door, the one leading deeper into the hive. “Go clean yourself up,” she said scornfully. “You’re disgusting.”

For the briefest of moments, Kanaya looked as though she wanted to say more – but she didn’t dare disobey a direct order, not to Vriska’s face. She bowed her head, stood, and quickly left the block. Vriska very nearly purred with amused satisfaction as she watched her slave go, before returning to her former place of comfort in the cushions. She drew amusement in equal parts from both Kanaya’s cheek and her shock over having it brought to light. Together they were like a soothing balm on Vriska’s anger – in fact, now that she was calm she felt quite sure her slave had intended neither disobedience nor ambition. She had simply gotten ahead of herself – and though a lesson would certainly be in order, Vriska now found herself inclined to mercy. In fact, thinking it over further, Kanaya may even have had a point...But that was for later consideration.

Lounging back in the soft pile, the lady Marquise’s thoughts returned to a matter far more interesting, not to mention more important, than gardens. Her fingertips sought out the age-worn leather of the diary and plucked it from the drift of cushions into which it had fallen, returning it to its proper place on her breast. Removing one of her gloves and tracing the familiar contours of the cover, Vriska closed her eyes and let her mind drift.

Where was the psionic who had so ably destroyed one of her tanks and slaughtered its crew? Need she fear a repeat performance? She had to know. Vriska sought out first the feeble mind of her greenblooded contact – and had no choice but to laugh at the macabre joke fate had played on her. Not a psionic after all, but a gifted blueblood like herself? Fascinated, Vriska plundered her contact’s mind of all he knew, vanishingly little that it was – but he did know the name of the Legislacerator who had taken charge of the slave, and the Legislacerator in turn knew the proprietor of the auction house that had resold him. Vriska shuddered with violent distaste as she touched the flesh-merchant’s mind – he would suffer violent daymares for the rest of the season, no matter how much sopor he used, but Vriska could only regret that she dared not extract a stronger vengeance from his mind. From the merchant she passed on to the blueblood’s new owner – and here at last her hesitation faded, for this was a mind she knew very well. It had left itself open to suggestion through over-use of its particular gifts, and Vriska had used that weakness to great advantage just a sweep before. She brooded over the mind, delicately shuffling through its thoughts like the lady herself might have fingered a precious jewel, unsure if she wanted to buy it, but impressed by the gemstone’s worth.

“What do you have for me now, Lady Megido...?”


	7. Sufferance

Had his worries been for nothing? It seemed so; while Madam Muroid had yet to say a truly pleasant word to him, likewise was she ever cruel. As for the Lady Megido, Equius had failed to catch more than a handful of glimpses of her. If one went by his experience of the past two nights alone and set aside their first meeting, one might have been tempted to suspect she lived only in the space between the front aperture of her hive and the room Vallia had designated as the lady’s “study,” though what an obviously grown woman had left to study was beyond Equius’ understanding. She had found his ignorance amusing, and his embarrassment over it even more so, but at least she had stopped laughing long enough to explain his error.

This was the same Vallia who Madam Muriod had mentioned in passing, a soft spoken and waifish indigoblood kept by the owner of the hive stem and rented as a hivekeeper to her ladyship. Equius had been installed in the room technically meant for her, but it seemed that prior to his purchase the lady had preferred to share her hive with her majordomo alone. Vallia was used to sleeping in the common room at the base of the hive stem, just above the vehicularblock – and she assured him that she did not mind in the least, though Equius felt there was something slightly anxious in the way she escorted him around on the hive and began to instruct him on basic domestic tasks. She seemed to regard him as her replacement, and what evidence did he have to the contrary? They’d discussed it on his second full night there, Aurthour already puttering around the hive’s large nutriblock like he belonged there and Vallia’s thick-tailed lizard lusus coiled beneath the table and her feet; he’d described the interview with Lady Megido, and received Vallia’s agreement that it sounded very unusual with decidedly mixed feelings.

On the other hand, she was able to inform him that her ladyship spoke for several mining groups in the Senate, and so the two of them began to theorize that perhaps her ladyship wanted his technical expertise for some sort of new device related to that task. This seemed fairly sensible to Equius, after all, it wasn’t as though he was in a position sell off propriety information to anyone else, now was it? He set himself to the first and last order the lady had given him with a will, and Vallia advised him on when and how to present the requested list to Muroid – thus the encounter passed with little more than a cool look and a disdainful sniff from that quarter.

Despite all these advantages – and he would truly have been the wretch Muroid imagined him to be, if he could not acknowledge that he been most fortunate in being chosen by the Lady Megido – Equius could not bring himself to feel truly hopeful about the future. How could he, when the ache of losing his moirail still burned in his chest, a pain he dared not identify to anyone? But at the very least he could look to the future with a slightly less unpleasant resignation than he had on the auction block, and by the evening off the third night in the Lady Megido’s hive he was even beginning to grow comfortable in his new routine.

Of course that was when her ladyship chose to turn said routine on its head. The interruption was as violent as it was sudden, the lady suddenly storming forth from her study and fairly snarling at Muroid as she snapped, “I suppose I shall just have to take him with me, then.” That was all; following this mysterious pronouncement she turned on her heel and vanished the way she had come. What followed was a veritable storm of activity; Muroid’s dismay and disapproval were palpable, but like any true professional she rose to the occasion and ransacked the common store room, from which Equius had already cautiously withdrawn a few changes of clothing. But where he had selected for plainness and serviceability, she was clearly after the finest clothing she could find on short notice – and for all that they were clearly cast-offs, the clothes she selected were nevertheless finer than anything Equius was used to. She then supplemented the outfit with embellishments drawn, to Equius’ intense discomfort, from the lady’s own personal freestanding storage chamber – and here at last he mounted a feeble protest, when he found himself being sewn into the dismantled remains of a maroon jacket with gold trim.

“I’ll never be able to lift my arms in this,” he said miserably, standing awkwardly while Vallia poked about his exposed underarms with needle and thread. What he meant was, I’ll never be able to lift my arms without destroying it.

“It doesn’t matter,” Muroid snapped, looking over his ensemble with a disapproving eye. “You’re going to stand still and look pretty. And pray to grace it’s the last time,” she muttered, probably imagining Equius could not hear. “I don’t even want to think about the cost of outfitting a hulk like you properly.”

After that he dared not speak again, not even to ask where precisely he was going – and so he found himself in the motorized four wheeled device with the Lady Megido once more, a drafted hiveslave in the driver’s seat. It must have been so the night of his arrival, he noted with a distracted thought; most of his attention was on the lady herself, who likewise seemed preoccupied. He had some sort of notion that they were heading towards the city center – but he had no idea just how right he was until the device stopped, and with an arch look from the lady he hastily disembarked and held the door open for her. If she had expected him to do anything else she must have been sorely disappointed, for he was now completely distracted by their surroundings.

That they stood before the Hall of the Senate and the Six Guilds was obvious; nowhere else on Alternia would he find that hexagonal building, those six ancient spires, peaks shining and connected by bridges strung with lights, so that the entire structure seemed overhung with a web of light. He and the lady now stood in a great courtyard, and Equius knew without looking that the sacred headquarters of the Cavalreapers must lay behind them, for the entrance to the Senate lay ahead and before it a great statue of a winged troll, the span of his horns straight and wide, and his wings picked out with precious stones that glowed in the light of the building he guarded. He carried in one hand a great lance, pointed towards the ground, and around his feet rose the fearsome, rubbery limbs of the ancient nightmare he had given his life to slay.

The colossal doors were open; they had been built to accommodate a Tyrant, should his honored presence be required, but now they held a swirling, chattering crowd of trolls, clad in and all in shades of maroon, russet, and gold. Equius was intensely, uncomfortably aware of the collar around his neck, the ghastly blue-tinged sweat that even then must have been beading his brow – but gradually he realized that he was far from the only slave in attendance. They were scattered here and there throughout the crowd, some holding handheld sun-shades for their owners, some taking notes, some simply standing and as Muroid had said, “looking pretty.” All were richly dressed; in fact some appeared to have taken more care with their appearance than their masters, and many wore jewelry in shades of glittering blue like nothing Equius had ever seen before.

The Lady Megido moved through the crowd with the sort of confidence that could only be born of long familiarity, pausing here and there to speak to one person or another. Equius tried his best to endure the curious and curiously appraising looks he was given, though so much scrutiny made him near-unbearably nervous. Fortunately no one required him to speak, but even so he breathed a small sigh of relief as he and the lady finally passed through the doors, into a cavernous block built out of black marble and lit by multi-armed luminosity projectors – Equius supposed he would be expected to call them chandeliers from now on. From the giant entry block they passed into a positively labyrinthine series of hallways, the walls draped with richly dyed curtains of red and gold and lined with doors leaning who knew where. Here all was silent, apart from a handful of psionics all seemingly heading more or less in the same direction as the lady herself was – until Equius heard the giggling.

At first he was sure he must have imagined the sound, it was so obviously out of place in these sober, exalted surroundings – but the Lady Megido must have heard it too, for she quickly looked up and down the empty hallway before tracing what now full-fledged laughter to the space behind a nearby curtain. This her ladyship quickly seized and thrust aside, revealing two snickering bluebloods, a man in a plain blue shirt with a hood, glasses, and a green band around his throat, and a woman in a black coat with teal trim, drops of lapis lazuli at her ears and a silver band tooled with rubies on her neck. And if their presence and actions were surprising, even moreso was the lady’s reaction. Equius was stunned to see her smile and cross her arms, watching as the two bluebloods knelt before her – but the respect inherent in the gesture was ruined by the way both of them were looking up at her with open and scarcely-stifled mirth.

“Terezi Pyrope and Jonden Trebeg,” the lady purred. “I should have known. And just what has you two delinquents in such a good mood?” At this the man – Trebeg? – clapped both his hands to his mouth, dissolving once more into laughter.

Pyrope elbowed him hard in the ribs, gave the lady what could only possibly be interpreted as a cheeky grin, and said, “Your moirail, my lady. He’s gotten into trouble with my master again.”

Equius gaped at her with shock, while Trebeg began to sound like he might do himself real harm if his amusement continued. The lady herself laughed, saying, “I should have known. What’s the problem this time?” But then her brow suddenly creased with concern, and she said, “It can’t possibly be that seadweller of his, can it...?”

Pyrope nodded. “Well, I don’t know what he was _expecting_...But when he turned up soaking wet at my master’s hive this evening before even the _paper_ had gotten there and started ranting about what his new slave had done to the apiary, well, I guess my master leapt to a few conclusions.”

The Lady Megido began to giggle helplessly, both hands pressed to her exquisitely painted lips. “Oh no,” she said amused dismay. “That’s, oh no...” She shook her head after a moment, informing the two slaves that, “I _told_ him that seadweller was a bad idea. What did it do?”

Trebeg had stuffed his own hood into his mouth at some point during Pyrope’s little speech, but he pulled it out now and said, “We don’t know. Whatever happened it was bad enough to put the entire network down for over three hours yesterday – that’s what Jadret, I mean, my mistress, sent me over here for, because she couldn’t get ahold of Lord Captor to find out what’s up.”

“Sounds serious,” the Lady Megido said thoughtfully. “But I’m sure whatever happened, Lord Captor has it well in hand – otherwise he never would have left his hive. I think you’d better go now and tell Madam Leyhar what Terezi said,” she said to Trebeg. “The session will begin soon, and I have a feeling Sollux will need her once it’s over.”

He nodded and stood, brushing himself off. “Thank you, my lady,” he said, using what Equius would have considered a respectful tone for the first time since the encounter began, though it was somewhat spoiled by the twinkling in his eyes.

“Give her my regards as well,” the Lady Megido told him, and he nodded, taking his leave.

He whispered something to Equius as he passed, something that sounded very much like, “Good luck,” but Equius was still too stunned by everything he had just witnessed to do more than gape at Trebeg as he _winked_ – and whatever did he mean by such a thing? – and walked on by.

Fortunately the Lady Megido hadn’t noticed; Pyrope had stood as well, and now she and her ladyship had their heads together, holding a whispered conference that Equius only heard by virtue of standing so close.

“It is pretty serious,” Pyrope was saying in low tones, her lips close to the Lady Megido’s ear. “I didn’t want to say anything in front of Jonden and worry Jadret, but I was in Lord Alsami’s office this morning. He’s going to ask the Senate to take the apiary away from Sollux, I’m certain of it.”

“But they can’t do that!” Lady Megido cried, before hastily lowering her voice. “They can’t touch it as long as it’s private property, that’s why Sollux built the country hive in the first place.”

“They can do whatever they want if he’s culled for mental incompetence,” Pyrope said grimly, and when the Lady Megido gasped with horror she added, “Not that I think Alsami’s going to take it that far...but there are others who might.”

“Of course,” the Lady Megido growled; it was the closest to angry Equius had yet seen her. “So what’s the plan?”

“The debate with Lord Lerace is tonight,” Pyrope said. “He’s far from the worst of the bunch, but if we take him down hard it’ll send a message the others won’t forget.”

“But that will mean sacrificing –“ Seemingly just then remembering Equius’ presence, the lady looked sharply at him over her shoulder, and said in a loud voice, “Well, I trust your master has everything well in hand.”

Pyrope cackled but said nothing, other than, “I suppose he does,” before bowing deeply. “If you’ll excuse me, milady, I had better be getting back to him now.”

“Of course,” the Lady Megido said coolly. “Inform him that I am, as always, his ally and friend. He has nothing to fear tonight.”

“Even after the debate...?” Pyrope asked coyly, looking up from her bow and raising one eyebrow. Equius was stunned all over again to see the corner of her ladyship’s lips curl upwards.

“I doubt he has as many problems as he thinks,” she said, and waved Pyrope off. “Run along now.” Pyrope obeyed – and like Trebeg, she winked at Equius before she left. Equius was beginning to feel as though he had stumbled headfirst into a whirlwind of intrigue, and the experience was dizzying enough to make the metaphor feel distressingly literal. The appraising look her ladyship was giving him did not help matters. Equius stared at her helplessly; for a moment she seemed about to speak, but then her eyebrows suddenly drew together in a scowl, and she turned on her heel and stalked off without a word. He could do nothing but follow.

***

Equius found himself eventually following the lady into a small block, little more a built-in clothing receptacle, with the walls all draped in heavy curtains dyed the exact shade of the Lady Megido’s blood. Her ladyship strode briskly to the far wall and pulled the curtain to one side, revealing – Equius’ breath escaped his chest in a stunned gasp.

He and the lady were standing on a large balcony, one of what must have been hundreds lining the lower half a vast ellipsoid room. They must be directly under the great dome, Equius realized; this then must be the fabled Hall of the Senate. As an engineer himself he could easily imagine the sheer scale of the labor and cost that must have gone into building it, but that alone could not keep his attention forever. The balconies were a riot of color, all the shades of yellow, brown, and maroon that he had seen in the crowd outside and more. It was just as well the Lady Megido didn’t seem to mind his gawking while she arranged things on the small desk at the front of the balcony to her liking.

In such a profusion of color, his eyes were automatically drawn to the one spot of darkness in the vast room: a balcony draped in black, a banner hanging from its lip bearing a sign picked out in iron grey. What wiggler didn’t know that sign, the two curved lines, the opposing circles? And that must mean the man seated in the balcony, the red lining of his thrown-back hood like a flame across his black-clad shoulders, was...

As Equius watched, Pyrope appeared through the curtain and whispered something in his lordship’s ear. A tousled head topped with short, nubbish horns turned, fiery eyes swept the crowd – and for the briefest of moments Equius found himself locking gazes with the Lord Sufferer himself. His blood pusher like ice in his chest, Equius quickly looked away. They said the Lord Sufferer could read the hearts and minds of his fellow trolls...What, Equius wondered fearfully, had his lordship seen just now?

The Lady Megido recalled his attention with a sharp word; it was a relief to attend on her, and follow her tersely whispered orders to stand just behind her left shoulder, eyes forward. He couldn’t see the Lord Sufferer like this, and surely such an august person would have more important things to look at than a lowly slave. Something was happening in the center of the hall; a metal platform was being lowered from the apex of the ceiling, and upon the platform were seated seven figures cloaked in white. One of them held a large staff, and standing up she banged the tip of it sharply against the floor once the platform had ceased its descent.

“We Guild Mastericators do now call the Senate to order, for the glory and peaceful advancement of Alternia and all the Mother Grub’s children,” she said, in a clear and strident, yet obviously aged voice. “Will the Legislacerature please read the minutes of the previous session.”

Many of the lords and ladies in the audience turned their heads to look towards the eastern half of the hall, though many more remained in place, seemingly already settled into an attitude of boredom. The Lady Megido was part of the former group, and Equius followed her gaze to behold a large balcony at which several trolls were seated in an array around an especially large and grand chair, the back carved to look like the head of a Tyrant. Despite the distance the finery of the troll seated in this chair was still plain to see; as Equius watched she raised one glittering hand and gestured to one of the other trolls sharing her balcony, who stood and began to read from a sheaf of documents he held in one hand with a sonorous voice.

After such a grand beginning, the session itself proved to be disappointingly, almost anticlimactically dull. Once the minutes had been read – and it had been almost exactly like listening to the minutes of a common union or lawnring council meeting! – the chief Mastericator, the lady who held the staff, began to call upon a string of lord and ladies to address the Senate over one issue or another. This should have been at least somewhat interesting, but before each lord or lady could speak they must first be recognized by the Mastericators of their respective guilds – and some of them had received instruction by three or even four guilds, requiring a lengthy set of formal calls and responses before they could even their addresses. What was worse, several of the speakers seemed to care more about making themselves heard than about bringing their peers around to their point of view, and delivered their speeches in bored, droning tones that grated on the ears and deadened the mind. Even when the issues these speakers claimed to be supporting fell in the losing side of a vote, they seemed to neither notice nor care about the loss.

A blessed break in the monotony came when the Lady Megido was called upon to speak; her voice sounded almost musical after so many dictionary-perfect examples of dispassion, and Equius was pleasantly surprised to realize that a mining company he and Nepeta had closely dealt with just this last bright season fell under the shadow of her patronage. He had been looking forward to resuming work with them once the seasons changed, and though the chances of that happening now seemed vanishingly small he was nevertheless somehow glad for the secondhand contact with his old life, in a bittersweet way. Once again he found himself wondering what had become of Nepeta, and what she was doing at that moment.

Trying to distract himself from such painful thoughts, Equius found his gaze returning, nearly against his will, to the balcony of the Lord Sufferer. His lordship appeared to be absorbed in a note he was just then making on a scrap of paper, which he then handed off to Pyrope, who tucked it into the front of her coat and vanished through the curtains behind her master’s seat. Working on a hunch Equius scanned the crowd for a particular sign, a particular shade of yellow curtain – and through sheer luck located Lord Captor’s balcony just as Pyrope reappeared. His lordship looked very poorly indeed; his robes seemed bedraggled compared to those of the Lady Megido or even his closest balcony-neighbors, and he wore no jewelry that Equius could see. He had been resting his head in one of his hands, propped up on the armrest of his chair, and perhaps he had even dozed off for a moment, for he visibly started when Pyrope tapped his shoulder.

Something about the circumstances seemed to amuse her; she was grinning widely as she delivered her master’s note, but saying Lord Captor did not share her amusement would have been a vast understatement. He frowned thunderously and made several remarks to Pyrope as he hastily penned a reply, though what they were Equius could not have said, as both his lordship and Pyrope seemed to be taking great pains to keep their voices down. Equius wondered if he should call Lady Megido’s attention to these proceedings, but had no idea how to do so without risking censure from her; and in any case it was already too late. Pyrope had tucked Lord Captor’s reply away in the same manner as she had treated the original message and vanished. She reappeared shortly in her master’s balcony, and here at last her amusement seemed to have found its match, for Equius saw the Lord Sufferer press a gloved hand to his lips as though trying to stifle laughter. He grinned across the hall at Lord Captor, and Equius could just make out his lips as they silently formed the words, “Just watch me.” After that came another word he couldn’t make out, but when he swiftly glanced in the other direction Lord Captor’s colorfully livid expression lead him to believe it had been some kind of insult. Equius shifted in place, uncomfortable to be even tangentially connected to such lurid carrying on, and wished he dared attempt loosening the collar of his jacket. Alas, he felt quite certain that the delicate fabric would be torn and spoiled under his touch.

The entirely of the communication between the Lord Sufferer and Lord Captor had taken only a handful of minutes, less time than it took the latest speaker to finish his speech. Once _that_ was over, the chief of the Mastericators again banged her staff on the ground. “The Lord Sufferer, Karkat Vantas, has been challenged to a debate by Lord Tilmer Lerace, concerning the relative merits of republicanism,” she informed the assembly; Equius saw several psionics who had appeared to be on the verge of slumber suddenly shake themselves and sit up, taking a new interest in the proceedings. The chief Mastericator continued, “Will the challenged party please stand and be recognized.”

The Lord Sufferer stood and bowed deeply to the Mastericators. “The Guild of Sight recognizes Lord Vantas,” said one, though she sounded deeply displeased by that fact.

“I thank the Guild of Sight for its teachings,” the Lord Sufferer said, and bowed again. To Equius’ surprise that seemed to be the end of it; like the Lady Megido, the Lord Sufferer had apparently received instruction from only a single guild, which after hearing so many psionics recognized Equius now gathered to be somewhat unusual.

The chief Mastericator then called upon Lord Lerace, a brownblood with swept back horns that bent at a sharp angle just before clearing the crown of his skull, but before he could be recognized the Lord Sufferer spoke again. “Stop, my lords. Don’t dishonor this assembly with the likes of him.”

A murmur of surprise ran through the crowd, and the chief Mastericator banged her staff on the floor. “You are speaking out of turn, my Lord Sufferer,” she said sternly. The undercurrent of amusement in her voice was surely a product of Equius’ imagination.

“I beg your pardon, Headmistress,” the Lord Sufferer said, “but I am not. Lerace waived his right to address this body when he chose to embezzle money from his own constituents.”

The Lady Megido gasped in horror; Equius could not help but share the sentiment, and so it seemed did most of the assembly. A wave of shocked muttering swept through the Hall, and all eyes were on Lord Lerace, who had just started to his feet.

“This is outrageous,” he shouted, so angry that he was going brown in the face. “Lady Peroxi, I must protest –“

“You have not yet been recognized, Lord Lerace,” the chief Mastericator began to say, only to be interrupted herself by one of her fellows.

“Shall he not defend himself against an unjust accusation?” the Mastericator of Thought demanded.

Once again Lord Lerace broke in. “I’m not accused, I’m _slandered,_ ” he said, voice rising with angry incredulity. “I beg my lords to pay no further attention to this nonsense!”

“I wasn’t aware you had passed the bar, Lord Lerace,” a new voice broke in, nearly inaudibly – yet silence reigned across the Hall in its wake. Turning his head Equius saw that it was the richly dressed Legislacerator who had spoken; she now continued in a cold, sardonic tone, “Allow me to be the first to congratulate you; but if you’ll humor an old professional, I would prefer to make that distinction myself once I’ve heard everything the Lord Sufferer has to say.”

Lord Lerace flushed further and snarled quietly, but said nothing.

The Lord Sufferer bowed to the Legislacerator and said in an even tone, “I have always cooperated with the Legislacerature to the best of my meager abilities. That said, I’m afraid I have no proof of Lerace’s criminal activities, beyond what my sight tells me. But it seems to me,” he continued, raising his voice over a renewed wave of whispering, “That a true innocent would not object to the Legislacerature clearing his name.” He smirked. “By searching his office, perhaps?”

“No!” Lord Lerace shouted. All eyes in the Hall immediately turned to him, and he stammered as he realized his error. “I have nothing to hide, but neither do I wish to waste the time of either the Legislacerature or this assembly, as such an investigation surely would!”

“That is also for me to decide,” the Legislacerator said drily, and with another gesture she dismissed three of her assistants, who immediately stood and left the balcony.

No one except the Lord Sufferer himself – and just maybe the Legislacerator – could have anticipated what happened next. Equius had half-expected Lord Lerace to give vent to another damning cry of denial, not for him to suddenly draw a pistol from a fold in his robes and open fire on the Lord Sufferer. He couldn’t possibly have hoped to actually land a hit at that distance, but it was a moot point anyway, for the Lord Sufferer had already ducked behind the lip of his balcony, dragging Pyrope down with him, and before a second shot could be fired a crackling web of blue and red light had draped itself over the balconies of the Lord Sufferer and his closest neighbors. All this Equius saw in a flash as his own shock and instinctive fear made him wrap his arms around the Lady Megido and knock her chair over onto its back, shielding her with his body.

Her ladyship squawked in surprise and struggled, smacking his shoulder. Equius cautiously looked back over the lip of the balcony, just in time to see Lord Lerace vanish through his brown curtain, two of his neighbors jumping over from their own balconies and following him.

“Get off me, you great oaf!” the Lady Megido snapped, eyes blazing white; abashed and perspiring heavily, Equius hastily obeyed. She sprang to her feet and left the balcony, running full-tilt back out into the hallway with Equius hard on her heels. Completely bewildered, he saw no other option than to follow his mistress wherever she went – which after a moment’s hesitation seemed to be back towards the western entrance and cavernous block where they had come in. Her robes snapping about her, the Lady Megido charged ahead like an ancient warrior, like an angel of vengeance, pulling up only when they reached the vast entryway, and could see Lord Lerace and two others halfway across the hall.

Equius quite distinctly heard her ladyship breathe a sigh of relief, and at first feared that she meant to take on the evildoers herself. But it was not meant to be, for just then the Lord Sufferer himself appeared far above their heads, throwing himself against the railing of the circular balcony that lined the entirety of the block’s upper floor.

“Lerace!” he called out, enraged, “Stand and face me, you coward!” Lerace paused in his flight, just long enough to look back, and that proved to be his undoing, for the Lord Sufferer climbed over the railing and threw himself off, the lining of his robes trailing behind him like a banner of fire. Only Equius was standing close enough to see the Lady Megido’s eyes and hands glow; all other eyes, including her own, were on the Lord Sufferer, and the black and red of his robe hid a matching glow as his descent slowed by the smallest fraction, just enough to lessen the impact of his landing. He hit the ground running, charging toward Lerace – and far from being cowed by such a manifest display of bravery and righteousness, Lerace had the temerity to draw on the Lord Sufferer a second time!

The gunshot rang and echoed throughout the block, but the Lord Sufferer was undeterred. He rushed Lerace, thrusting aside one of his allies with a mighty check of the shoulder – and Lerace cried out, he was shouting with _pain_ , and falling to the floor, and his two allies were shouting as well and surrounding the Lord Sufferer while the Lady Megido grimly began to run out into the center of the block and somewhere on the upper level Lord Captor called the Lord Sufferer’s personal name – and then suddenly the Legislacerator and her subordinates were in the midst of the conflict, and all strife subsided save for Lerace’s broken sobs.

“Most elegantly done,” the Legislacerator was saying just as Equius and the Lady Megido reached her and the Lord Sufferer. He was holding a sickle, small enough to have been hidden under his robes; brown blood was smeared along the inner edge, and Lerace was clutching one arm and whimpering as the Legislacerator’s attendants dragged him and the two lords who had tried to follow him away.

“It was nothing,” the Lord Sufferer said modestly, wincing as the Legislacerator clapped him on the shoulder. “I could hardly allow Lerace and his cronies to make a getaway when your men were so close to putting him away for good.”

“You’re too modest, as always,” the Legislacerator said. She had left off patting the Lord Sufferer’s shoulder and was now – oh goodness. She was petting it slowly; Equius felt as though he should avert his eyes. The Legislacerator was at least three times the Lord Sufferer’s age. “Too modest by half,” she continued. “Of course we suspected that Lerace and his intimates were being dishonest with their income, but a search of his office would have been completely out of the question had you not forced the issue. You really should reconsider my offer...I’m sure arrangements could be made if the bar still worries you...”

“Master!” Equius did not miss the relieved expression that passed over the Lord Sufferer’s face when Pyrope suddenly ran up and threw her arms around him, though it was very quickly concealed behind a wince and quiet grunt of pain. Pyrope immediately set up a wail that would have put Lord Lerace to shame. “Oh, master!” she sobbed, burying her face in the Lord Sufferer’s chest. “You’re wounded!”

“Comes of running into gunfire like an idiot,” Lord Captor said. He must have been following close behind Pyrope, to have shown up so soon after her. “If you’ll excuse us, Lady Inerva,” he said to the Legislacerator, “we should probably get that looked at before he decides bandages are a decadent sign of moral degradation or something.”

The Lord Sufferer made an offended scoffing noise and seemed about to speak, but the Legislacerator just laughed and said, “Of course, how foolish of me not to notice. You really should take better care of yourself, Lord Vantas.” And then she turned away, seemingly dismissing the entire group and beginning to speak to one of her assistants.

Each of them grabbing an arm, Pyrope and Lord Captor hustled the Lord Sufferer away, ignoring his pained protests. The Lady Megido followed the three of them closely, and Equius followed _her_ \-- until they’d ascended a flight of stairs and passed through another series of hallways, at which point the first three entered a small block furnished with receptacles such as one used to store important documents and a writing platform, among other things. The Lady Megido suddenly turned in the doorway and said to Equius, in a harried voice, “Guard this door. Let nobody in,” and then shut the door in his face.

It was a sudden end to a bewildering evening, and yet Equius could not help but feel relieved. This at least was an order he could follow without confusion or hesitation, and he turned around to face the hallway, adopting the expression of detached professionalism that had served him so well as a caravan guard and crossing his arms. To his extreme horror and dismay, he felt the maroon jacket that Muroid had dismantled and forced him to wear suddenly and audibly split down the back. There would be no putting it back together now.

***

“You didn’t say he had a second gun!” Karkat groaned, the stoic mask slipping as soon as Aradia finally shut the door. He staggered, yelping as his two supporters tightened their grip on his arms.

“ _You_ didn’t say you were going to go charging after him like a lunatic,” Terezi said grimly, and released him so she could go rummage for bandages in the desk.

“You didn’t even tell Terezi what you were planning?” Sollux had started out shouting; by the end of the question his voice had almost risen to a shriek. It would have been kind of gratifying if he hadn’t also begun to dig his fingernails into Karkat’s shoulder – his _injured_ shoulder, thank you very much.

“I didn’t exactly plan that part,” Karkat snapped, grabbing his kismesis by the bony wrist and squeezing until he let go. “And would it kill you to be careful? In case you didn’t notice I’ve developed a shiny new bullet hole on that side.”

“Oh, I noticed,” Sollux hissed. Their faces were just a few inches apart; Karkat snarled as his face with sprinkled with tiny droplets of saliva. “Just like I noticed you trying you to get your fucking neck broken, what were you _thinking_?”

“Please.” Karkat shoved Sollux back with a hand on his chest, deliberately overusing his superior physical strength. Even though he’d used his uninjured arm, the movement still made spots dance before his eyes; he quickly sat down on the duvet pushed up against one wall. “Aradia was there to catch me,” he said quickly, before Sollux could comment on the slip. “It was perfectly safe.”

“And what if I hadn’t gotten there in time?” Of course Aradia chose just then to break in. “Sollux and Terezi are right, Karkat, that was incredibly foolhardy.”

“And here I thought it was just stupid,” Terezi muttered, finally coming back with the bandages and a large pair of scissors.

“It was _not_ stupid,” Karkat said firmly, enduring with quiet dignity as Terezi began to cut the shoulder off his robe. “I knew there was a slight chance Lerace might draw on me if I pushed him too far – that was why I asked you to show up tonight in the _first place_ Sollux, you might recall – but I didn’t think I’d have to take him down permanently _tonight_. I had to improvise – it’s a bullet hole, woman, not a love tunnel!”

“Actually it’s more like a shallow graze.” Terezi upended a small bottle of peroxide over the wound, making Karkat yelp.

“What was the point of taking him out tonight anyway?” Sollux said, briefly pausing in his fretful pacing up and down the length of the room. “You’ve been going on about this debate for almost a season – I thought you wanted his backing for some of those reforms you were planning to shove down the Senate’s neck or something.”

“I can’t expect a technician to understand the delicate political theory involved,” Karkat sniffed disdainfully – or tried to. The effect was somewhat spoiled by his pained whimper as Terezi tugged on his arm, making sure the cloth bandage went on tight enough.  


“You’re probably going to need a couple stitches, boss,” Terezi said quietly, her lips close to Karkat’s ear.

“We’ll go see Dinola later,” Karkat promised her, and tenderly tucked a few strands of hair behind her ear. “I’m sorry,” he whispered.

Meanwhile on the other side of the room, Aradia had taken a seat on the edge of the desk. “Alsami was going to make another move against you,” she informed Sollux, the fear and worry she’d felt upon first hearing the news returning twofold now that all the excitement – and with any luck, the danger – was over. “It might have to come to nothing...But there’s faction against you in the Senate Sollux, you _know_ there is, and if they’d picked it up—“

“ _What_?” Sollux stopped dead and stared wildly between Karkat and Aradia, his mouth fallen open with disbelief.

“Here we go,” Karkat groaned as Sollux suddenly wheeled on him.

“Are you _serious_?” Sollux snarled, his face turning livid yellow, almost like a bruise. “You seriously just risked your neck out there over one of your stupid political conspiracy theories?”

“Oh yeah, because we all know how much I love getting shot at,” Karkat snapped. “It must be nice going through life with your head stuck that firmly up your own noxious asshole, but unfortunately not all of us have the luxury of going through life shielded by our own delusions of invincibility!”

“No, you have to make due with delusions of grandeur.” Sollux’s voice had fallen into a low, dangerous hiss. “I can’t tell which is more insulting, that you think I actually need to _worry_ about what a bunch of old fossils and pandead pencil pushers say about me, or that you think you have to _protect me from them_ \--“

“Somebody has to!” Karkat shook off Terezi’s restraining arm and shoved himself to his feet; staggering only slightly as his vision suddenly swam with angry red spots. “You won’t listen, you won’t be careful, you keep doing stupid shit like fucking _cheating on me_ with a jumped up _fish_ \--“

“Don’t even start!” Sollux shouted; by now he and Karkat were mere inches from each other, snarling and spitting into each other’s faces. “Don’t even _try_ to bring that back up, I told you it wasn’t like that, I fucking _told_ you –“

Karkat rolled right over the attempted interruption like a battle cruiser. “A jumped up fish who then turns around and tries to destroy your life’s work without even _understanding_ what it’s doing, or do you not care about the apiary anymore? Because I’m sure the academy would be more than happy to put it back where it _belongs_ \--“

“Will both of you stop it?” Aradia suddenly shrieked. “Are you rivals or spoiled wigglers?” She didn’t make the desk shake of throw a filing cabinet into the wall, but she didn’t need to: her words were dramatic gesture enough. As one the other three trolls turned to look at her, Karkat aghast, Terezi thoughtful, and Sollux looking as sick as she’d ever seen him.

“AA,” he said quietly, gently; as though trying to talk down an angry lusus. “You don’t have to...I mean, we don’t need...”

“ _I’m_ not doing anything,” she told him primly. She _felt_ like how a lusus must feel, just then; overtaxed and stuck with a charge that wouldn’t even do her the courtesy of speaking the same language. “But if you and Karkat don’t find a better way of expressing yourselves I’ll need someone to mediate between my headache and me.”


	8. The Witch of Stars

“Our ancestors were capable of amazing things.”

The atrium was always quiet at this time of night, everyone either in class or busy around the great telescope. Jadret could see them now through the massive, plate glass doors; her fellow teachers and scientists like shooting stars in their white coats as they soundlessly moved here and there, every one busy with observing, measuring, recording...Sometimes all three at once. Behind her ranged a new group of students, young adults who had just cleared the undergraduate program two seasons ago and who were now deemed qualified to assist their instructors. Jadret, known to her not-so-attentive audience as “Madam Professina Leyhar,” turned to face them all, knowing their eyes weren’t on her and not caring. They were focused on the spectacle behind her, and for once Jadret was proud to yield center stage.

“Not content to simply look at the stars,” she said into the hush, “they built vast ships, vehicles the size of cities, all so they could fly from star to star, exploring, learning – and conquering.” One student, who either possessed a better eye for detail than his fellows or who had been forewarned suddenly nudged one of his neighbors, discretely pointing at the portrait that hung over Jadret’s head. She took note his face, but otherwise ignored him. She’d protested putting the founder’s sign on his portrait for precisely this reason, but now she no longer cared. Students were, in their own way, far easier to deal with than her colleagues or professional rivals. Either they would respect her on her own merits, or they would not; a little thing like an identifiably famous ancestor wouldn’t make any difference.

“We know that the last seadweller empress ruled an empire that spanned multiple solar systems – it might even have encompassed as much as a quarter of the galaxy! But which stars the sea witch visited; what manner of planets and people she found? We have no idea. That knowledge was lost in the Great War – and with it the means of building another starship. For nearly twelve centuries, we trolls have been trapped here on Alternia, unable to expand and grow. In a way, it’s like we never really left the brooding caverns at all.” She gave her audience an encouraging smile. “But now those nights are also quickly becoming a thing of the past. Thanks to the work being done in this very academy, as well as the advancements made by our Cavalreaper colleagues, we’ve already mapped both the heavens and the ruins on our very own green moon – of course I’m sure your teachers have already disabused you of any superstitious notions of an ‘Oracle on the Moon.’” Jadret grinned, and the students obligingly tittered with amusement at the very idea of such well-educated persons as themselves continuing to hold such outdated beliefs. Everyone knew that the green city was probably the remnants of some kind of imperial military installation, or maybe an early colony. Only wigglers and ignorant slaves believed in the Oracle, or any of the other ancient legends. 

“Of course,” Jadret laughed, “if there _is_ an Oracle up there, then I certainly hope he enjoys entertaining, because he’s going to be receiving some guests very soon.” An expectant hush fell over her audience; of course they’d all heard the rumors. Jadret acknowledged their eagerness with a pleased nod. “Ranula IV was completed earlier this season,” she proudly announced. “It’s set to launch next bright season – and if all goes well, we can expect to see a troll on the green moon within two sweeps!”

The effect on the students was instantaneous; they went wild with jubilation, several forgetting their manners completely and cheering, while many more tried to ask Jadret some question or another, each trying so hard to talk over his or her neighbors that hardly a single intelligible word could be discerned from the babble. Jadret indulgently gave them a moment before waving her hands for silence. “That’s why the work you all are about to begin tonight is so important,” she told them, adopting a facade of sternness. “The Cavalreapers have the construction of Ranula’s descendants and the training of their pilots well in hand, but none of that will matter unless we can provide them with accurate data. _We_ are the ones who told the Cavalreapers how to construct a rocket in the first place –” In fact it had been Jadret’s own ancestor who had laid the foundation for unlocking the secrets behind the imperial propulsion system, which had in turn led to the _far_ more civilized engine used in the present. “—And we are the ones who tell them when to launch those rockets, and where. Tonight all of you will begin the next phrase in your academic careers, as assistants to the astronomaulers working here around the great telescope. I can’t honestly tell you that it’ll be exciting work – in fact many of you will probably find the hours long and your duties boring. But I can promise you that it will be _important_ work, and that once you step through these doors you will become a part of the greatest work imaginable – the construction of Alternia’s future.”

The students clapped politely; Jadret was pleased to note that several of them still wore the looks of excited anticipation they’d had coming in, while several more seemed determined, as though preparing themselves for a difficult but necessary task. Some of the senior professicides preferred to completely break a student’s spirits before allowing them to take on any serious duties, thinking it would better equip them to handle the demands of their position in addition to weeding out anyone truly unsuited to academic life. In Jadret’s opinion, they just didn’t like the idea of fresh competition. In any case she could never have treated one of her students so horribly; the rigors of academia were bad enough without adding to them deliberately. 

As it happened Jadret was about to have yet another opportunity to consider those rigors close-up, for just as she had ushered the last of the students into the observation room and was about to close the door behind her, a brightly painted hand suddenly seized the door, holding it open. More like a set of talons than a true hand, Jadret thought grimly, and quickly turned around; not because she didn’t know what Madam Professina Amarqu looked like, but because she didn’t want to leave her back exposed to the old harridan. 

In truth Amarqu was only a handful of sweeps older than Jadret, but in their case the difference counted for a great deal. Amarqu has only been a professicide for two sweeps when Jadret received her own promotion, and the fact that they belonged to two diametrically opposed institutions had done nothing to soften the blow. Quite the opposite, in fact. 

“Quite the stirring speech,” Amarqu purred. “You must have worked so hard on it; when you’ve listened to as many student presentations as I have, you learn how to recognize these things.”

Jadret smiled at her through gritted teeth. “You’re too kind,” she said. “I hope I didn’t hold you up too long; I didn’t think Natural Science was sending anyone over tonight.”

“I’m running a little late, I’m afraid,” Amarqu said loftily. “I know it must seem rather frivolous to such a serious young lady such as yourself, but I just can’t seem to let go of the old standards. A professional appearance counted for so much when I was a student.” 

“Really?” Jadret said brightly, the hand that wasn’t still holding onto the door clenching into a fist by her side as she resisted the automatic urge to fix her hair. Like many members of the faculty at the Academy of Natural Science, Ichnea Amarqu had taken the fashionably idle members of the psionic class as inspiration when crafting her own personal appearance. Her eyes and lips were as heavily painted as her nails, while jewels hung from her earlobes and her hair had been carefully curled into ringlets. Jadret had nothing personal against ringlets, but she resented the implication that she somehow looked less than professional simply because she _chose_ not to paint her face or do more than run a brush a few times through her hair in the early evening, and she _especially_ resented the fact that Amarqu could so easily get to her when she’d been hearing similar jibes directed at her personally and at her like-minded colleagues in the Academy of Artificial Science for sweeps. 

“Oh yes,” Amarqu was saying. “Of course you have your own way of doing things, and I can respect that – but it must be so hard on you, getting the respect you deserve when you look like a common technician.” Her lips were drawn down in a moue of sympathy, but her eyes were bright with contempt. 

“I’m sure it would be,” Jadret snarled, “If appearance was the only quality I had that was worth judging.” She wrenched the door out of Amarqu’s hand, holding it wide open in an invitation that would have been impossible to ignore. “If you’ll excuse me, madam,” she said, struggling to modulate her voice, “My students are waiting for me.”

“Of course,” Amarqu said, with a superior smile. She knew who had won this round. “I wouldn’t dream of keeping you from your work.” She swept past Jadret, one hand holding up the hem of her coat; unlike the professicides of Artificial Science, who wore white in imitation of their founder, the faculty of the Academy of Natural Science wore richly colored coats that were only a few steps down from the robes favored by the ruling class. Only the desire to avoid giving the old bitch the satisfaction kept Jadret from deliberately trodding on Amarqu’s hem. 

She was still seething as she entered the observatory and took charge of the students once more; what should have been a happy occasion as she introduced the group to the various professicides and acadecimators who would serve as their supervisors for the coming sweep was spoiled by Amarqu’s presence. Though Amarqu neither said nor did anything outright disruptive – in fact she made a great show of staying out of everyone else’s way and appearing totally absorbed in her own measurements – she didn’t have to. Her very presence was like grit in the gears of a well-oiled machine, both on the personal and broader levels; an apt metaphor indeed, since one couldn’t look at her without remembering the on-going, frigid war between the two academies, of which the observatory and telescope itself was but the latest bone of contention. Luckily for Jadret’s already fragile composure, maintaining a united front in the presence of the enemy took precedence in her colleague’s minds over hassling the youngest member of the faculty – though one old, grizzled senior professicide did lean close to her at one point while her student’s attentions were elsewhere, and look Amarqu’s way with a significant lifting of his eyebrows.

“Trouble in hell, Leyhar?” was all he said; Jadret pressed her lips tightly together, holding back an instinctive retort, and took the quiet rebuke-disguised-as-a-joke in the spirit in which it’d been meant. Romance had no place in a hive of science, and anyway it wasn’t though she were planning on entering into a _relationship_ with Phadre Amarqu! Psionics who were merely playing at academia might have room for such cross-institution tomfoolery – Jadret quickly suppressed a sting of guilt at that thought – but it was completely out of the question for a serious scholar. 

Her resolve thus strengthened, Jadret had an easier time ignoring Amarqu’s presence, and was even able to muster a smile for her matesprit when, having at last either dismissed or surrendered charge of her students, she left the observatory and discovered Jonden waiting a few paces away from the glass door. He grinned back at her; it was the only mark of flushed affection they could allow themselves in public, lest certain conservative parties take note and inflate Jadret’s already burdensome reputation for eccentricity. But it was only expressions of pity that had been denied them; the feelings that filled the air between them as they turned as one and left the atrium were palpably real. 

“Did you just get back?” Jadret asked him, as the two of them ascended one of the winding staircases that linked the atrium to the office and teaching megablocks on the upper floors. She’d sent Jonden out earlier that night to track down Sollux or one of their other friends; the Academy lay outside the city proper, the foresight of its founder having led him to break ground on one of the tall hills that overlooked the capital. A shuttle route connected city and college, but even if he’d found Sollux right away it still might have taken Jonden hours to get there and back. 

“Nah, I’ve been back for a couple hours now,” Jonden said with a shrug, his hands tucked deep into his trouser pockets. “I just didn’t want to bother you and Madam Amarqu.” There was a familiar mischievous glint in the side-long look he gave Jadret. “It looked like you were talking about something important.”

What would have sounded like mockery or a rebuke from one of her colleagues was the height of hilarity coming from Jonden. “More like we were discussing how best to waste my time!” Jadret said with a laugh. “I don’t what she thought she was doing here. She tried to force-feed me some stupid excuse, but I _checked_ the appointment log last night! If I didn’t know any better I’d say she showed up specifically to annoy me.”

“Or somebody else,” Jonden said thoughtfully, startling Jadret who had been expecting the usual silly joke at Amarqu’s expense. 

“What do you mean?” she asked, sharper than she meant to; fortunately Jonden seemed to have either not noticed or not taken it personally.   
“I’m just wondering if it has anything to do with Sollux – I mean Lord Captor,” he said, with a quick glance over his shoulder to see there had been anyone present to hear his slip. The hallway was empty, but Jadret still drew him closer to one wall, allowing them to watch each other’s backs while they talked. 

“So you found out what happened to the network?” she asked him; Jonden nodded.

“I couldn’t find Sollux before the session started,” he said, “but I ran into Terezi, and she says –” He quickly related the story of the seadweller in abridged form. Jadret couldn’t help but crack a grin at the colorful image it painted of her ashen partner and patron, run ragged by his new acquisition and dripping on Karkat’s doorstep – but she also pointedly asked, once the tale was over –

“But what does that have to do with Amarqu?”

“That...might just be a coincidence,” Jonden admitted slowly. “But I’m thinking, Terezi _did_ say Sollux had to bid against someone from Natural Science to get the seadweller. In fact she kind of made it sound like he snatched it right out from under their noses. It just seems kind of funny, Sollux pissing them off and then Amarqu showing up tonight just to pick at you?”

“It’s a nicely timed coincidence, if that’s what it is,” Jadret agreed after a moment, and then growled and stomped her foot. “God, it’d be just like her! Petty bitch...” She followed this up with several very impolite, muttered aspersions on Amarqu’s genes, upbringing, and moral conduct, Jonden looking on with a small, indulgent grin, before turning her ire onto a more accessible target. “And Sollux!” she snapped. “Oh, this is just like him too! I’ve already got the board, the physics department, _and_ the Cavalreapers breathing down by my neck, but does he care? No, he has to go and piss off Natural Science too! What was he _thinking_? Ooh,” she snarled, “Next time I see him I’m not going to just give him a piece of my mind, I’m going to break it off and stuff it straight down his protein chute with a side of his own ass, see if that makes him think twice next time he decides to skip his meds and go out in public!”

“So should I get a mop or something?” Jonden asked, amused. This might actually have been enough to snap Jadret out of her fuming, except that he continued, “Cause Sollux got here like half an hour ago. He’s been waiting in your office.” 

There was a very good reason why the two of them were not, and had never been moirails. 

***

Jadret didn’t upgrade her computer anything like close to often enough, in Sollux’s opinion; it continually mystified him how someone who considered the entire day wasted if she hadn’t rewritten three physical laws and designed a new propulsion system before breakfast could be happy with machines that he personally had rendered obsolete nearly a sweep ago. Just because she _could_ design a rocket on the floor of a student hostel, with a slide rule – and in fact had done exactly that, it was one of Sollux’s favorite stories to tell when he wanted to embarrass and praise his auspistice at the same time – was no reason to handicap herself _now_. He’d had been categorically forbidden from touching her personal machine, but after waiting in her office for a quarter of an hour he’d just been unable to resist. Soon he was so absorbed in the task he’d set for himself that he didn’t even notice when the lady in question entered the block, until she finally pulled a small calculator out of her pocket and threw it at his head. 

“What the fuck, JD?” he snapped, clutching at the spot where the calculator had bounced off his skull and surreptitiously closing the program he’d been working on. By the time Jadret figured out what he’d fixed, she’d be too used to it to bother changing it back. 

“Oh, did I hurt you?” Jadret asked with false sweetness as she came around to his side of the desk. “Maybe if I hadn’t just had to spend two hours with the original bitch queen from planet psychopath peering over my shoulder, I might actually feel sorry!”

“So that’s somehow my fault?” Sollux asked, crossing his arms with a perfectly blasé attitude as Jadret shoved him aside, still seated in her wheeled office chair, and peered at her computer’s screen with suspicion. “You know, it is really adorable how much you let her get to you.” 

“Oh, don’t you _dare_ ,” Jadret snapped, whirling to face and pointing her finger into his face. “Do not even start with me, I am so not in the mood. And anyway,” she said, shoving her keyboard out of the way and perching on the edge of the desk, “it might actually be your fault! From what I hear you’ve been going out of your way to piss Natural Science off.” 

“How did you –” Sollux started to ask, before his gaze fell on Jonden, who had quietly followed Jadret into the office and was now sitting on her couch, half-heartedly grading a stack of testing papers while he eavesdropped. Jonden grinned at Sollux and waved at him merrily; Sollux’s face fell into an expression precisely halfway between a pout and a rueful, answering grin. “So what?” he said to Jadret. “You’re spying on me now?”

“It’d be more like gossiping, wouldn’t it?” Jonden asked. 

“Clearly you haven’t spent enough time around KK, if you don’t know that there is no difference,” Sollux said with a weary sigh. “And you,” he added, leaning back in his chair and pointing at Jadret. “Have been spending _too much_ time around him. I wasn’t even thinking about those assholes.”

“So you just dropped a few million on a seadweller for the hell of it,” Jadret said, her voice heavy with skepticism. The look on her face was enough to give even Sollux pause. 

“Well...yeah,” he said after a moment, with a small chuckle. “Don’t,” he quickly added, “don’t look at me like that. If you’d been there, you’d get it.”  
“Get what, that you’re completely looney?” Jadret shrieked, and kicked the edge of his chair. “I think I’ve already figured that out for myself, thanks!” 

“Oh my god, will you just stop?” Sollux groaned with exasperation and dragged Jadret down into his lap, prompting a semi-playful growl. Jonden sighed gustily and averted his eyes from the ensuing ashen slap-fight; nobody really wants to see their matesprit in that kind of situation. At last the match ended with Jadret hooking one of her blunt, ink-stained fingers into the corner of Sollux’s mouth and giving his cheek a sharp tug. 

“That’s enough, mister,” she said, with almost mock-severity. “You’ve embarrassed me, not to mention Aradia, and if I know Karkat even a quarter as well as I think I do you probably have him pissed at you too. It’s time to stop spouting shit out of your mouth, and explain yourself.”

“Gross,” Jonden interjected from his spot on the couch. Jadret smiled at him winningly and released her auspistice with a final tug and a wet ‘pop.’Sollux winced, rubbing his cheek with exaggerated care.

“Not that it’s any of your or KK’s business— ” he began, only to be cut off by a warning growl from Jadret. “Oh my _god_ ,” he said, with a gusty sigh and a glare. “I felt sorry for him, all right? I wanted to take him for myself before anyone else could.”

Jadret stared at him for a long, wordless moment, as though waiting for the punchline. “...Seriously?” she finally asked him, completely taken aback.


End file.
